II. ii. 85. have-at-him. A thrust. This is Dyce's emendation of the Folio 'If it doe; Ile venture one; haue at him.'

II. ii. 109. Gardiner. Stephen Gardiner (14831555), Trinity College, Cambridge, early distinguished himself as a student in Civil and Canon Law. As such, he was employed by Henry as an agent in the divorce proceedings. After Wolsey's death he was rewarded by being made Bishop of Winchester (1531). He later became an opponent of Cranmer and the Reformation, was imprisoned throughout the reign of Edward VI, and was one of the chief counsellors of Mary. Since it was in her reign that the Protestants were persecuted, Gardiner was popularly held responsible and generally hated.

II. ii. 112. Taken from Holinshed.

II. ii. 122. Doctor Pace. Richard Pace (1482?1536), a celebrated scholar and writer, succeeded the famous John Colet as Dean of St. Paul's. He was also Dean of Exeter and of Salisbury. He had been sent on many embassies, but in 1525 he was forced to return to England owing to mental derangement. Holinshed is reporting popular gossip in crediting this insanity to the persecutions of the Cardinal, but an examination of the state papers does not justify such a conclusion.

II. ii. 139. Blackfriars. Before the Reformation the monastic establishment of the Dominicans, between Ludgate Hill and the Thames. The locality is still marked by Blackfriars Bridge.

II. iii. This scene, which has no structural importance in the play, is used to characterize Anne Boleyn. Except for the brief conversation in I. iv. and her appearance in the procession in IV. i., this is her only scene. The contrast between the dramatic importance given to Katharine by the dramatist and that given to Anne, the mother of Queen Elizabeth, is curious.

II. iii. 1-11. The ejaculatory form of Anne's speech expresses her emotion, and also marks the reappearance of Shakespeare's style.

II. iii. 36. three-pence. This is an anachronism, because 'the first large and regular coinage of threepences took place in the reign of Elizabeth' (Fairholt).

II. iii. 44. Ever to get a boy. An allusion to Henry's desire for a male heir. II. iii. 46. little England. Steevens suggested that 'little England' may be Pembrokeshire. This interpretation is over-subtle as the Old Lady is not supposed to know that Anne was about to be created Marchioness of Pembroke and certainly the audience does not know it.

It

II. iii. 47. emballing. Explained by commentators as a reference to the ball, the symbol of power, placed in the hand of the sovereign at the coronation. was not used at the coronation of a queen-consort; Anne was given a dove upon an ivory staff. Merely an indelicate joke.

II. iii. 48. Carnarvonshire. A barren county in Wales, in contrast to fertile England.

II. iii. 61. of you. The Folio reads

'Commends his good opinion of you, to you;' Presumably the 'to you' is an error of the typesetter, although the verse of this play is so ragged that the dramatists may have written it so.

II. iii. 63. Marchioness of Pembroke. Taken from Holinshed.

II. iii. 78.

a gem. An allusion to Queen Elizabeth. II. iii. 86. fie, fie. The Folio gives three fie's; but the third is an extra syllable in the line. II. iii. 92.

mud in Egypt. The wealth of Egypt is due to the mud deposited by the overflowing Nile. II. iv. S. d. The location of this scene is taken from Holinshed. Bishop of Canterbury is an obvious

1

error for Archbishop of Canterbury. At this time, June 21, 1529, the Archbishop of Canterbury was William Warham; the Bishop of Lincoln, John Longland; the Bishop of Ely, Nicholas West; the Bishop of Rochester, John Fisher; and the Bishop of Saint Asaph was Henry Standish. The details of this procession are taken from Holinshed. In an uneducated age, the meaning of events was explained to the crowd by symbols. The purse was carried to represent the Treasury; the great seal signified that Wolsey was Lord Chancellor; the hat, that he was a cardinal; the two crosses represented his archbishopric and his commission from the Pope as legate; the silver mace was the emblem of authority; the two pillars, the insignia of a cardinal. The procession, then, was a visible representation of Wolsey's position in the Church and in the State. The scene is a dramatization of Holinshed (1587), pp. 907, 908; the speeches are little more than a versifying of Holinshed's prose.

II. iv. 11. Sir, I desire. Compare this speech with Holinshed: 'Sir (quoth she) I desire you to doo me justice and right, and take some pitie upon me, for I am a poore woman, and a stranger, borne out of your dominion, having here no indifferent counsell, and assurance of freendship. Alas sir, what have I offended you, or what occasion of displeasure have I shewed you, intending thus to put me from you after this sort? I take God to my judge, I have beene to you a true and humble wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure, that never contraried or gainesaid any thing thereof, and being alwaies contented with all things wherein you had any delight, whether little or much, without grudge or displeasure, I loved for your sake all them whom you loved, whether they were my freends or enimies,' etc., etc. The other speeches are equally close.

II. iv. 35. many children. Of the five children

that Katharine had borne, only one survived, Mary. aas She succeeded her half-brother, Edward VI, on the mous throne. III.

II. iv. 111-113. your words, Domestics to you, the dea Your words, like household servants, perform the any service that your will desires.

etc.

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II. iv. 125. Gent. Ush. From Holinshed, the view name of the gentleman usher is Griffith. He appears again in IV. ii.

only t

Summ

II. iv. 170. Bishop of Bayonne. As a matter of details fact, Cavendish, who is Holinshed's authority here, was mistaken; it was not Du Bellay, Bishop of Bay- Th onne, but Grammont, Bishop of Tarbes, that came on Surre this embassy.

II. iv. 180. bosom of my conscience. Holinshed's phrase is 'bottom of my conscience.'

II. iv. 223. drives. The old Northern English plural, common in Shakespeare. Compare 'compels' in I. ii. 57.

II. iv. 236. Cranmer. Cranmer was then abroad, collecting opinions concerning the validity of the King's marriage.

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III. i. The location of this scene is taken from in h Holinshed, and is dramatized from the account there I given.

(15 The sec

III. i. 23. But all hoods make not monks. Latin form of this proverb, cucullus non facit mona- the chum, is quoted also in Measure for Measure and in kin Twelfth Night.

III. i. 40. Tanta est erga te, etc. 'So great is the th honesty of our purpose toward you, most noble Queen.' cla As Holinshed says only that they started to speak sh Latin, these words are the creation of the dramatists. th III. i. 60. your cause. The Second Folio corrects fa the First, which reads our cause.

III. i. 144. Ye have angels' faces. Katharine is a

a

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Mar Spaniard. She is here alluding to Pope Gregory's famous exclamation, Non Angli sed angeli.

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III. ii. This scene, with the possible exception of the death of Katharine, IV. ii, is the most famous one in the play. Nichol Smith divides it into: (1) the interview between the King and Wolsey; (2) the interview between the nobles and Wolsey; (3) the interview between Wolsey and Cromwell. Of these three only the second is taken directly from Holinshed, but details in the first and third are from Holinshed's summary of Wolsey's character.

The chronology is hopelessly confused. 'Lord' Surrey, the Earl of Surrey, was after 1524 the poet Surrey, because his grandfather, the Norfolk of the First Act, had died in that year and transmitted the ducal title to the poet's father, the Norfolk of this scene. More's appointment as Chancellor followed Wolsey's death, and Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, March 30, 1533. For dramatic effect events thus separated by years are condensed

into one scene.

III. ii. 23. Not to come off. In the speech, the pronouns are ambiguous. No, he (Wolsey) is settled in his (the King's) displeasure, not to escape.

III. ii. 30. The cardinal's letters. Holinshed (1587), p. 909: 'he required the pope by letters and secret messengers, that in anie wise he should defer the iudgement of the diuorce, till he might frame the and kings mind to his purpose.'

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III. ii. 42. Would he had! As Anne Boleyn was the niece of the 'Lord Surrey' of the play, the exclamation is natural enough. The dramatists, however, show no knowledge of this relationship. Apparently the only value of the information is its relation to the fall of Wolsey.

III. ii. 51. Will fall some blessing. An obvious allusion to Queen Elizabeth.