HENRY VIII

king of England in Shakespeare's Henry VIII. Henry is a somewhat ambiguous central character. He is easily misled by the malicious Cardinal Wolsey early in the play, and his true motivation for divorcing Queen Katharine and marrying Anne Bullen is never made entirely clear. born , June 28, 1491, Greenwich, near London died Jan. 28, 1547, London Henry VIII, detail of a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1538; in the collection of 1/4 king of England (1509-47), who presided over the beginnings of the English Renaissance and the English Reformation. His six wives were, successively, Catherine of Aragon (the mother of the future queen Mary I), Anne Boleyn (the mother of the future queen Elizabeth I), Jane Seymour (the mother of Henry's successor, Edward VI), Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr. chronicle play in five acts by William Shakespeare, produced in 1612-13 and published in the First Folio of 1623 from a transcript of a fair copy, made by the author, prepared for reading. The primary source of the play was Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles. As the play opens, the duke of Buckingham, having denounced Cardinal Wolsey, lord chancellor to King Henry VIII, for corruption and treason, is himself arrested, along with his son-in-law, Lord Abergavenny. Despite the king's reservations and Queen Katharine's entreaties for justice and truth, Buckingham is convicted as a traitor based on the false testimony of a dismissed servant. As he is taken away for execution, Buckingham conveys a prophetic warning to beware of false friends. Henry becomes enamoured of the beautiful Anne Bullen (Boleyn) and, concerned over his lack of a male heir, expresses doubts about the validity of his marriage to Katharine, his brother's widow. Separately, Anne, though expressing regard for the queen and reluctance to supplant her mistress, accepts the king's gifts of love. Wolsey tries to extend his power over the king by preventing this marriage, but the lord chancellor's machinations and long-time corruption are finally revealed to all. As he leaves the court, Wolsey encourages his servant Thomas Cromwell to offer his services to Henry, who soon promotes Cromwell to high office. Anne is married to Henry in secret and with great pomp is crowned queen. Although Katharine maintains her dignity throughout her divorce trial and subsequent exile from court, her goodness has no power in the face of political intrigues. She dies soon after hearing that Wolsey has died a penitent. The new lord chancellor and other court officials attempt to reassert control over the king by accusing Thomas Cranmer, Henry's loyal archbishop of Canterbury, of heresy. The king is no longer so easily manipulated, however, and Cranmer reveals to the plotters a ring he holds as a mark of the king's favour. Henry further asks Cranmer to baptize his newborn daughter, and the play ends with a final celebration and Cranmer's prophesy of England's glory under the future Queen Elizabeth I. Henry VIII, which is widely thought to be Shakespeare's last completed play, has had a long and interesting stage history, but from the mid-19th century a number of critics have doubted that Shakespeare was its sole author. Many scenes and splendid speeches were written in a style very similar to that of John Fletcher. Henry VIII differs in other ways from the histories Shakespeare wrote during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It is more episodic-more of a pageant and a series of loosely connected crises united by the deaths of Buckingham, Wolsey, and Katharine-than a skillfully plotted drama. Additional reading J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (1968), supersedes all earlier biographies. Lacey Baldwin Smith, Henry VIII: The Mask of Royalty (1971), though inclined to overdramatize, interestingly discusses the King's last years. The often discussed medical problems are best studied in A.S. MacNalty, Henry VIII: A Difficult Patient (1953). A.F. Pollard, Wolsey (1929, reprinted 1965), still gives the most searching account of the first half of the reign. G.R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of Henry VIII (1953), and Policy and Police (1972), provide the best analysis of the Cromwell era. The religious setting is characterized by A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation, rev. ed. (1964).