1527. August. Commencement of proceedings for the divorce. 1528. October. Cardinal Campeius arrives in London. 1532. September. Anne Bullen created Marchioness of Pembroke. 1529. May. Assembly of the Court at Blackfriars to try the case of the divorce. 1529. 1599) Cranmer abroad working for the divorce. 1529. Return of Cardinal Campeius to Rome. 1533. January. Marriage of Henry with Anne Bullen. 1529. October. Wolsey deprived of the great seal. Sir Thomas More chosen Lord Chancellor. 1533. March 30. Cranmer consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. 1530, 1533. 1536. 1533. 1544. May 23. Nullity of the marriage with Katherine declared. November 29. Death of Cardinal Wolsey. June 1. Coronation of Anne. January 8. Death of Queen Katherine. Cranmer called before the Council. 1533. September. Christening of Elizabeth. DURATION OF ACTION From the above it is clear that the historical events of the play cover a period of twenty-four years; the time of the play, however, is seven days, represented on the stage, with intervals: INTRODUCTION By HENRY NORMAN HUDSON, A.M. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth was first published in the folio of 1623, with a text unusually correct for the time, with the acts and scenes regularly marked throughout, and with the stage-directions more full and particular than in any of the previous dramas. That it should have been printed so accurately is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the construction of the sentences is often greatly involved, the meaning in many places very obscure, and the versification irregular to the last degree of dramatic freedom throughout. The date of the composition has been more variously argued and concluded than can well be accounted for, considering the clearness and coherence of the premises. The Globe Theater was burned down June 29, 1613. Howes, in his continuation of Stowe's Chronicle, recording this event some time after it took place, speaks of "the house being filled with people to behold the play of Henry the Eighth." And in the Harleian Manuscripts is a letter from Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated "London, this last of June," and containing the following: "No longer since than yesterday, while Burbage his company were acting at the Globe the play of Henry VIII, and there shooting of certain chambers in triumph, the fire catched, and fastened upon the thatch of the house, and there burned so furiously, as it consumed the whole house, and in less than two hours, the people having enough to do to save themselves." But the most particular account of the event is in a letter written by Sir Henry Wotton to his nephew, and dated July 6, 1613: "Now to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Bankside. The king's players had a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the knights of the order with their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats and the like; sufficient, in truth, within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a mask at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where, being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes being more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks: only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him, if he had not, by the benefit of a provident wit, put it out with bottle ale." From all which it would seem that the play originally had a double title, one referring to the plan, the other to the material, of the composition. At all events, Sir Henry's description clearly identifies the play to have been the one now in hand; and it will hardly be questioned that he knew what he was about when he called it a new play. And the title whereby he distinguishes it is in some sort bespoken in the Prologue; while, in the kind of interest sought to be awakened, the whole play is strictly corresponding therewith; the Poet being here more than in any other case studious of truth in the historical sense, and adhering, not always indeed to the actual order of events, but with singular closeness throughout to their actual import and form. In short, a kind of historical conscience, a scrupulous fidelity to fact, is manifestly the regulating and informing thought of the piece; as if the Poet had here undertaken to set forth a drama made up emphatically of "chosen truth," insomuch that it should in all fairness deserve the significant title, All is True. This of course infers the play to have been written as late as 1612, and perhaps not before the beginning of 1613. And herewith agrees that part of Cranmer's prophecy in the last scene, declaring that "Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, which can scarce be understood otherwise than as referring to the new nation founded by King James in America, the first charter of Virginia being issued in 1606, the colony planted and James-Town settled in 1607, and a second charter granted, and a lottery opened in aid of the colonists, in 1612. It will not be out of place to adduce here the well-known passage from the Diary of the Rev. J. Ward, who became vicar of the church at Stratford in 1662, forty-six years after the Poet's death. "I have heard," says he, "that Mr. Shakespeare was a natural wit, without any art at all; he frequented the plays all his younger time, but in his elder days lived at Stratford, and supplied the stage with two plays every year. That this statement is in all points strictly true, is not pretended; nor does the writer give any part of it as a fact, but merely as what "I have heard": as to that about the "two plays every year," the most that can be said is, that it probably had some basis of truth; which basis may have been merely that Shakespeare continued to write for the stage after he retired to Stratford. And that the reverend author took no small interest in the person he was writing about, may be safely presumed from the rule he lays down for himself just after: "Remember to peruse Shakespeare's plays, and be versed in them, that I may not be ignorant in that matter." The precise date of Shakespeare's retirement from the stage has not been ascer tained: most probably it was some time in the course of 1610 or the following year; and there are none of his plays which, whether by internal or external marks, appear more likely to have been written after that time, than King Henry VIII. In style and diction it has much the same peculiarities, only in a still higher degree, as The Tempest, The Winter's Tale, and Cymbeline, which there is every reason to believe were written during or near the period in question. Notwithstanding all this evidence, the notion more commonly held is, that the play was written before the death of Elizabeth, which took place in March, 1603. The only reason worth naming alleged for this is, that the Poet would not have been likely to glorify her reign so amply after her death. And because there is still less likelihood that during her life he would have glorified in so large a measure the reign of her successor, therefore resort is had to the theory, that in June, 1613, the play was revived under a new title, which caused Sir Henry Wotton to think it a new play, and that the Prologue was then written and the passage concerning James interpolated by Ben Jonson. Which position needs no other answer, than that it is unsupported by any real evidence: it is a sheer conjecture, devised of purpose to meet the exigency of a foregone conclusion. And, surely, the evidence must be pretty strong, to warrant the belief that Jonson would have exercised such a liberal patronage over any of Shakespeare's plays while the author was yet living. And as for the passage touching James, we can perceive no such signs as have been alleged of its being an after insertion: the awkwardness of connection, which has been so confidently affirmed as betraying a second hand or a second time, seems altogether imaginary: the passage knits in as smoothly as need be with what precedes and follows, is of the same cast, color, and complexion, and, in brief, is perfectly in course and keeping with the whole drift and upshot of Cranmer's magnificent prediction. We speak the more strongly on this subject, for that the interpolation |