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KING HENRY THE EIGHTH.

WITH

INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL.

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES.

BY THE

REV. HENRY N., HUDSON,

PROFESSOR OF SHAKESPEARE IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY.

BOSTON:

PUBLISHED BY GINN & HEATH.

1880.

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
NOV. 13, 1945

Esir A·C, Wanford

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by HENRY N. HUDSON,

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

GINN & HEATH:

J. S. CUSHING, PRINTER, 16 HAWLEY STREET,

BOSTON.

INTRODUCTION.

History of the Play.

ING HENRY THE EIGHTH was undoubtedly

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among the latest of the Poet's writing, notedly White thinks it was the very last; nor am I aware of any thing that can be soundly alleged against that opinion. The play was never printed till in the folio of 1623. It is first heard of in connection with the burning of the Globe theatre, on the 29th of June, 1613: at least I am fully satisfied that this is the piece which was on the stage at that time. Howes the chronicler, recording the event some time after it occurred, speaks of "the house being filled with people to behold the play of Henry the Eighth." And we have a letter from Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering, dated "London, this last of June," with the following: "No longer since than yesterday, while Burbage's company were acting at the Globe the play of Henry the Eighth, and there shooting off certain chambers in way of triumph, the fire catched, and fastened upon the thatch of the house, and there burned so furiously, as it consumed the whole house." But the most particular account is in a letter from Sir Henry Wotton to his nephew, dated July 2, 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 in the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with

many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty. Now King Henry making a masque 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."

Some of the circumstances here specified clearly point to the play which has come down to us as Shakespeare's. Sir Henry, to be sure, speaks of the piece by the title "All is True"; but the other two authorities describe it as "the play of Henry the Eighth." And it is worth noting that Lorkin, in stating the cause of the fire, uses the very word, chambers, which is used in the original stage-direction of the play. So that the discrepancies in regard to the name infer no more than that the play then had a double title, as many other plays also had. And the name used by Sir Henry is unequivocally referred to in the Prologue, the whole argument of which turns upon the quality of the piece as being true. Then too the whole play, as regards the kind of interest sought to be awakened, is strictly correspondent with what the Prologue claims in that behalf: a scrupulous fidelity to Fact is manifestly the law of the piece; as if the author had here undertaken to set forth a drama made up emphatically of "chosen truth," insomuch that it might justly bear the significant title All is True.

The piece in performance at the burning of the Globe theatre is described by Wotton as a new play; and it will

hardly be questioned that he knew well what he was saying. The internal evidence of the piece itself all draws to the same conclusion as to the time of writing. In that part of Cranmer's prophecy which refers to King James, we have these lines:

Wherever the bright Sun of heaven shall shine,
The honour and the greatness of his name
Shall be, and make new nations: he shall flourish,
And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches
To all the plains about him.

On a portrait of King James once owned by Lord Bacon, the King is styled Imperii Atlantici Conditor. And all agree that the first allusion in the lines just quoted is to the founding of the colony in Virginia, the charter of which was renewed in 1612, the chief settlement named Jamestown, and a lottery opened in aid of the colonists. The last part of the quotation probably refers to the marriage of the King's daughter Elizabeth with the Elector Palatine, which took place in February, 1613. The marriage was a theme of intense joy and high anticipations to the English people, as it seemed to knit them up with the Protestant interest of Germany; anticipations destined indeed to a sad reverse in the calamities that fell upon the Elector's House. Concurrent with these notes of seeming allusion to passing events, are the style, language, and versification; in which respects it is hardly distinguishable from Coriolanus and the other plays known to have been of the Poet's latest period.

All which considered, I am quite at a loss why so many editors and critics should have questioned whether Shakespeare's drama were the one in performance at the burning of the Globe theatre. They have done this partly under the assumption that Shakespeare's play could not have been new

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