Introduction
It was once thought that John Fletcher wrote most of Henry VIII and that Shakespeare might have contributed only a few scenes. The latest evidence, however, suggests that the entire play is indeed Shakespeare’s, although Fletcher may have contributed somewhat. Its looser structure is similar to his late romances and perhaps influenced by the popular masques that were being written around the same time for the Court and at Blackfriars Theatre. Henry VIII is a mix between pomp and spectacle on the one hand interspersed with scenes of political intrigue and moral dilemmas, featuring the likes of Cardinal Wolsey and King Henry’s first wife, Katherine, two of Shakespeare’s finer creations. Of the ten history plays, this is the one closest to Shakespeare’s own time, written only three generations after the events themselves. In fact, Queen Elizabeth I and King James I are as much the heroes of the play as anyone actually depicted during the actual reign of King Henry VIII. The fallen characters all stand in the way, in one form or another, of Elizabeth’s, and by extension, James’ reigns. Buckingham is brought down in act I for having designs on the throne, which of course would have prevented the birth of Elizabeth. Katherine was removed in act II, as Henry must divorce her and marry Anne Bullen if Elizabeth is to be born and her and James are ever to assume the throne. And finally, Cardinal Wolsey meets his fate in act III, as he opposed the marriage of Henry to Anne, preferring that the King marry the sister of the King of France. ‘I’ll no Anne Bullen for him.’ In act III Suffolk praises the new Queen Anne, prophesying that ‘from her will fall some blessing to this land.’ Anne is praised repeatedly, being Elizabeth’s mother. ‘She is the goodliest woman who ever lay by man.’ When Elizabeth is being christened enormous throngs of people are pressing to witness the event and perhaps see the babe, as if it is expected that she will one day be great. ‘What a multitude are here! From all parts they keep coming.’ The King at Arms declares ‘Heaven send prosperous life, long and ever happy, to the high and mighty princess of England, Elizabeth.’ But Cramner has the most grandiose prophesy for the new infant and future Queen: ‘This royal infant, though in her cradle, yet now promises upon this land a thousand thousand blessings. All princely graces shall be doubled on her. Truth shall nurse her and she shall be loved and feared. Good grows with her. In her days every man shall eat in safety and sing merry songs of peace. God shall be truly known. Nor shall this peace sleep with her, but when this bird of wonder dies, her ashes will create another heir as great in admiration as herself. But she must die a virgin and all the world shall mourn her.’ So this, at heart, is as much a play foretelling the renaissance reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James as it is about the court of Henry VIII. Shakespeare wrote this play for King James, his monarch. How flattering indeed it must have been for James to hear such glorious prophecies about himself. The play only depicts the later years of Queen Katherine, Henry’s first wife, and the early phase of Queen Anne, as short as it was. Henry himself is depicted as a powerful tyrant-king and his nobles are torn apart over the power they each attain. Cardinal Wolsey is shown as an agent of Rome and the Catholic Church and is brought down by the remaining pack of lords. Queen Katherine only produced one child, the future Queen Mary, also known as Bloody Mary, because she will aggressively attempt to return England to Catholicism after King Henry’s Protestant Reformation. Henry divorces Katherine because she had been married previously to his brother and never could produce a male heir in their 23 years together. He used the excuse of having married his brother’s wife as the reason God denied the couple a male heir. However, a more potent reason for their divorce may well have been his powerful attraction to Anne Bullen. Three years later Anne had had several miscarriages following the birth of Elizabeth and Henry accused her of adultery and treason and had her beheaded. Only days after Anne’s death King Henry married Jane Seymour, who would finally give birth to a male heir, the future King Edward VI. Jane would die from complications from that birth. Following King Henry’s death young Edward would reign quite briefly before becoming ill and dying. Mary was next in line for the throne, but she too died early in her tumultuous reign and that is when the crown was passed to the next child of King Henry, the famous Queen Elizabeth, who reigned for 45 glorious years in what is affectionate known as the Elizabeathan Age. Thomas Cramner, the Archbishop of Canterbury is depicted as something of a Protestant saint, accused by the others of heresy. But Henry protects Cramner, making him the godfather to Elizabeth. He will be burned at the stake during the reign of ultra Catholic Queen Mary, Henry’s first child. Henry VIII is a play best appreciated in production rather than on the written page. Shakespeare wrote this, his last complete play in 1612, a year before his final collaboration with John Fletcher in Two Noble Kinsmen. This is a play of great theatrical pageantry. The trial of Queen Katherine, the coronation of Anne Bullen and the birth and christening of Princess Elizabeth are truly regal affairs, as is the banquet put on by Cardinal Wolsey. It is also a play depicting the rise and fall of enormous personages. Buckingham, Katherine and Wolsey are deposed while Anne and Cramner are rising stars who history tells us will also fall very unceremoniously in due time. The writing is lyrical, the characters are well developed and the themes of the shifting sands of power and the relative nature of truth are all engaging qualities. While, Like King John, perhaps not as appreciated as the remaining English histories, Henry VIII is a most worthy contribution to the pantheon of Shakespeare’s finer works. It should also be noted that on June 29, 1613, during the inaugural stage production of Henry VIII in the Globe Theatre, a ceremonial cannon blast set the thatched roof ablaze and burned the famous theatre to the ground, which may explain at least partially why 1613 is also the year that the Bard penned his final play and retired from the theatre altogether and returned to his wife and family in his hometown of Stratford, where he would die three years later.
Prologue
“I come no more to make you laugh; things now that bear a weighty and a serious brow, full of state and woe, such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow, we now present. Those who can pity here may, if they think it well, let fall a tear: the subject will deserve it. Only they who come to hear a merry bawdy play will be deceived. Therefore, for goodness sake, be sad, as we would make ye. Think ye see the very persons of our noble story as they were living; think you see them great, then in a moment, see how soon this mightiness meets misery. And if you can be merry then I’ll say a man may weep upon his wedding day.”
Summary and Analysis
A figure arrives in the prologue and informs the audience that this is a serious play and that it may cause them to feel pity and even to shed a tear. Those hoping merely to be entertained will be disappointed. The audience is encouraged to be sad, as the characters they meet, who are great personages, will be rendered into misery. If the audience can manage to be merry then a man may weep upon his wedding day. This prologue sets the stage for what is to come, a serious play about characters who will fall from greatness into despair.
Act I (4 scenes)
Scene i
London. The Palace.
Enter the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Buckingham and the Lord Abergavenny.
Buckingham: “Good morrow, and well met. How have ye done since last we saw in France?”
Norfolk: “I thank your Grace; and ever since a fresh admirer of what I saw there.”
Buckingham: “Those suns of glory, those two lights of men, met.”
Norfolk: “I was then present, saw them salute on horseback; beheld them, as they grew together. Each following day till the last made former wonders. Today the French shines down the English, and tomorrow they made Britain India. Now this masque was cried incomparable. The two kings, equal in lustre; and being present both twas said they saw but one. All was royal.”
Buckingham: “Who did guide this great sport together?”
Norfolk: “One who promises no element in such a business.”
Buckingham: “I pray you, who, my lord?”
Norfolk: “All this was ordered by the good discretion of the right reverend Cardinal of York.”
Buckingham: “The devil speed him! No man’s pie is freed from his ambitious finger.”
Norfolk: “Surely, sir, there’s in him stuff that puts him to these ends; for, being not propped by ancestry, but spider-like, out of his self-drawing web, the force of his own merit makes his way – a gift that heaven gives for him, which buys a place next to the King.”
Abergavenny: “I cannot tell what heaven has given him, but I can see his pride peep through each part of him. If not from hell, the devil begins a new hell in himself.”
Buckingham: “Why the devil, upon this French going out took he upon himself, without the privity of the King, to appoint who should attend. He makes up the file of all the gentry.”
Abergavenny: “I do know, kinsman of mine, three at the least, who have by this so sickened their estates that never shall they abound as formerly.”
Buckingham: “O, many have broken their backs for this great journey.”
Norfolk: “Grievingly I think the peace between the French and us not values the cost that did conclude it.”
Buckingham: “Why, all this business our reverend Cardinal carried.”
Norfolk: “I advise you – and take it from a heart that wishes you plenteous safety – that he’s revengeful; and I know his sword has a sharp edge – it’s one and it may be said it reaches far, and where it will not extend, thither he darts it. Bosom up council; you’ll find it wholesome; I advise your shunning.”
Buckingham: “This butcher’s cur is venom-mouthed; and I have not the power to muzzle him. I read in his looks matters against me, and his eye reviled me. At this instant he bores me with some trick; he’s gone to the King; I’ll follow and outstare him.”
Norfolk: “Stay, my lord, and let your reason with your choler question what it is you go about. To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first.“
Buckingham: “I’ll to the King, and from a mouth of honour quite cry down this fellow’s insolence.”
Norfolk: “Be advised: heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it does singe yourself. We may outrun by violent swiftness that which we run at, and lose by over-running. Be advised. I say again there is no English soul more stronger to direct you than yourself, if with the sap of reason you would quench or but allay the fire of passion.”
Buckingham: “Sir, I am thankful to you, and I’ll go along by your prescription; but this top-proud fellow, by intelligence, I do know to be corrupt and treasonous.”
Norfolk: “Say not treasonous.”
Buckingham: “To the King I’ll say it. Attend: this holy fox, or wolf, or both, for he is equal ravenous as he is subtle, and as prone to mischief as able to perform it, his mind and place infecting one another. This cunning Cardinal, the articles drew as himself pleased. Charles the Emperor, he came to whisper to Wolsey; his fears were that the interview between England and France might through their amity breed him some prejudice; for from this league peeped harms that menaced him, whereby his suit was granted, the way was made, and paved with gold, as the Emperor thus desired, that he would please to alter the King’s course, and break the foresaid peace. Let the King know, as soon he shall by me, that thus the Cardinal does buy and sell his honour as he pleases, and for his own advantage.”
Norfolk: “I am sorry to hear this of him.”
Buckingham: “I do pronounce him in that very shape he shall appear in proof.”
Enter Brandon and a Sergeant at Arms
Brandon: “Your office, sergeant: execute it.”
Sergeant: “My lord the Duke of Buckingham, I arrest thee of high treason, in the name of our most sovereign King.”
Buckingham: “The net has fallen upon me! I shall perish under device and practice.”
Brandon: “I am sorry see you taken from liberty; tis his Highness’ pleasure you shall to the Tower.”
Buckingham: “It will help me nothing to plead my innocence; for that dye is on me which makes my whitest part black. The will of heaven be done in this and all things! I obey. O my lord Abergavenny, fare you well.”
Brandon: “Nay, he must bear you company. (to Abergavenny) The King is pleased that you too shall to the Tower.”
Abergavenny: “As the Duke said, the will of heaven be done, and the King’s pleasure by me obeyed.”
Buckingham: “My surveyor is false. The over-great Cardinal has shown him gold; my life is spanned already. My lord, farewell.”
Summary and Analysis
Norfolk, Buckingham and Abergavenny discuss the pageants just concluded between England and France. Norfolk reports that it was all organized by Cardinal Wolsey. Hearing this, Buckingham rages against the ambitious pride of the Cardinal, claiming that English nobles paid for these extravagances in France. Abergavenny relates that many nobles have lost their lands as a result of these costs imposed upon them. Norfolk agrees but warns that Cardinal Wolsey is a very powerful man who exacts revenge upon those who speak ill of him. Buckingham is concerned that Wolsey is already plotting against him and plans to expose the Cardinal’s corruption and treasonous behaviours to King Henry. Just then the Sergeant at Arms arrives with an arrest warrant for Buckingham, who knows immediately that he is finished. Wolsey clearly got to the King first and seeing that he is very close to the King, he has the power to destroy Buckingham. In the rise and fall of various characters throughout this play, Buckingham is the first, but not the last, to be destroyed.
Act I
Scene ii
London. The Council Chamber
Enter King Henry, leaning on the Cardinal’s shoulder.
King: “My life itself, and the best heart of it, thanks you for this great care; I stood in the level of a full charged confederacy, and give thanks to you who choked it. Let be called before us that gentleman of Buckingham’s. And point by point the treasons of his master he shall again relate.”
Enter the Queen, Norfolk and Suffolk.
Queen Katherine: “Nay, we must longer kneel: I am a suitor.”
King: “Arise, and take a place by us. You have half our power. Repeat your will, and take it. Lady mine, proceed.”
Queen Katherine: “I am solicited that your subjects are in great grievance: there have been commissions sent down among them which have flawed the heart of all their loyalties; wherein, Lord Cardinal, they vent reproaches most bitterly on you as putter-on of these exactions and almost appear in loud rebellion.”
Norfolk: “Not almost appears – it does appear; for, upon these taxations, compelled by hunger and lack of other means, in desperate manner daring the event to the teeth, are all in uproar, and danger serves among them.”
King: “Taxation! What taxation? My Lord Cardinal, you who are blamed for it, know you of this taxation?”
Wolsey: “Please you, sir, I know but of a single part pertains to the state.”
Queen Katherine: “No, my lord! You frame things that are known, which are not wholesome. These exactions, they are most pestilent; and to bear them the back is sacrificed to the load. They say they are devised by you.”
King: “Exaction! The nature of it? What kind, let’s know.”
Queen Katherine: “The subjects’ griefs come through commissions, which compels from each the sixth part of his substance, to be levied without delay; and the pretence for this is named your wars in France. Their curses now live where their prayers did; I would your Highness would give this quick consideration.”
King: “By my life, this is against our pleasure.”
Wolsey: “And for me, I hav no further gone in this than by learned approbation of the judges.”
King: “Have you a precedent of this commission? I believe, not any. Sixth part of each? A trembling contribution! To every county where this is questioned send our letters with free pardon to each man who has denied the force of this commission. Pray, look to it.”
Wolsey: (aside to the secretary) “A word with you. Let there be letters writ to every shire – let it be noised that through our intercession this revokement and pardon comes.”
Enter the surveyor
Queen Katherine: “I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham has run into your displeasure.”
King; “It grieves many. The gentleman is learned. Yet see, the mind growing once corrupt, they turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly than ever they were fair. He, my lady, has into monstrous habits put the graces that once were his, and has become as black as if besmeared in hell. Sit by us; you shall hear. This was his gentleman.”
Wolsey: “Stand forth, and with bold spirit relate what you have collected out of the Duke of Buckingham.”
King: “Speak freely.”
Surveyor: “First, it was usual with him, every day it would infect his speech, that if the king should without issue die, he’ll carry it so to make the sceptre his. He menaced revenge upon the Cardinal.”
Wolsey: “His will is most malignant, and it stretches beyond you, to your friends.”
Queen Katherine: “My learned Lord Cardinal, deliver all with charity. (to the surveyor) If I know you well, you were the Duke’s surveyor, and lost your office on the complaint of the tenants. Take good heed you charge not in your spleen a noble person and spoil your nobler soul. I say, take heed.”
King: “Let him on.”
Surveyor: “On my soul, I’ll speak but truth. I told my lord the Duke, that it was dangerous for him to ruminate on this so far. He answered ‘Tush, it can do me no damage’; adding further that, had the King in his last sickness failed, the Cardinal’s and Sir Thomas Lovell’s heads should have gone off.”
King: “Ah ha! There’s mischief in this man. A giant traitor!”
Wolsey: “Now, madam, may his Highness live in freedom and this man out of prison?”
Queen Katherine: “God mend all.”
King: “Call him to present trial. If he may find mercy in the law, tis his; if none, let him not seek it of us. By day and night! He is traitor to the height.”
Summary and Analysis
King Henry thanks the Cardinal for halting a plot on his life, but just then Katherine, his Queen, speaks up about the people being in a state of near revolt by taxations levied upon them by the Cardinal. King Henry claims not to now about these taxes, but Katherine reminds him that the responsibility for them is still his. Apparently they were taxes levied to pay for the pageants arranged by the Cardinal in France. The King is not pleased with this and orders Wolsey to rescind the taxes immediately. Wolsey obeys but tells his secretary to be sure that he gets the credit for this. The surveyor of Buckingham comes to testify against Buckingham and Katherine is disappointed that Buckingham has found displeasure with the King. Henry agrees but wants to hear what the surveyor has to say. What the man claims is that he overheard Buckingham state that he intends to seize the crown should King Henry die without an heir. Katherine reminds the King that this surveyor was fired by Buckingham because of complaints from the tenants and that his accusations may merely be an act of revenge upon Buckingham. The surveyor further states that Buckingham plans to have the Cardinal killed once Henry is dead. Finally, he claims to have heard Buckingham say that he will not make the mistake his father made, being murdered by King Richard, who he had been loyal to. Rather, Buckingham says he will use his proximity to the king to kill him. Based upon the testimony of this one disgruntled worker, who the Cardinal urged to testify, the King is convinced that Buckingham is a traitor who intends to kill him and orders that a trial proceed. It would seem that Buckingham is right and that Wolsey has abused his authority with the King. But Wolsey has arranged that Buckingham himself be tried for treason before he can plead his case against Wolsey. Buckingham is doomed and nothing Queen Katherine or anyone else can say will save him. Whoever opposes Wolsey runs the risk of being condemned before the King, so Queen Katherine may very well be the next to fall out of grace with Henry, even though they have been happily married for 23 years. But there is no male heir and Wolsey, a powerful representative of the Catholic Church, uses this to suggest what the King just might do next.
Act I
Scene iii
London. The palace.
Enter the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Sandys
Chamberlain: “Is it possible the spells of France should juggle men into such strange mysteries?”
Sandys: “New customs, though they never be so ridiculous, nay, let them be unmanly.”
Chamberlain: “Their clothes are after such a pagan cut to it, that surely they have worn our Christendom.”
Enter Sir Thomas Lovell
Chamberlain: “How now?”
Lovell: “Faith, my lord, I hear none but the new proclamation.”
Chamberlain: “What is it for?”
Lovell: “The reformation of our travelled gallants, who fill the court with quarrels.”
Chamberlain: “I am glad it is here. Now I would pray our monsieurs never see the Louvre.”
Lovell: “They must leave those remnants of fools and feathers that they got in France as fights and fireworks, renouncing clean the faith they have in tennis, tall stockings, short breeches and understand again like honest men, their diseases are grown so catching.”
Chamberlain: “Sir Thomas, whither were you going?”
Lovell: “To the Cardinal’s; your lordship is a guest too.”
Chamberlain: “This night he makes a supper, and a great one, to many lords and ladies.”
Lovell: “That churchman bears a bounteous mind indeed.”
Chamberlain: “No doubt he is noble.”
Summary and Analysis
The lords make fun of the newest fashions in France, as the English of Shakespeare’s day did indeed. Audiences would heartily appreciate this exchange. They next set out to an elaborate banquet put on by Cardinal Wolsey, who they agree is an honourable fellow.
Act I
Scene iv
London. The Presence Chamber in York Palace
Enter Anne Bullen and other ladies along with Sir Henry Guildford.
Guildford: “Ladies, a general welcome from his Grace. This night he dedicates to fair content and you. He would have all as merry as good company, good wine and good welcome can make good people.”
Sandys: “By my life, they are a sweet society of fair ones.”
Lovell: “O that your lordship were but now confessor to one or two of these!”
Sandys: “I would I were: they should find easy penance.”
Lovell: “Faith, how easy?”
Sandys: “As easy as a down bed would afford it.”
Chamberlain: “His Grace is entering.”
Sandys: “By my faith, sweet ladies, if I chance to talk a bit wild, forgive me; I had it from my father.”
Anne: “Was he mad, sir?”
Sandys: “O, very mad, exceedingly mad, in love too. But he would bite none. He would kiss you twenty with a breath.” (he kisses Anne)
Chamberlain: “Gentlemen, the penance lies on you if if these fair ladies pass away frowning.”
Enter Cardinal Wolsey
Wolsey: “You are welcome, my fair guests. That noble lady or gentleman who is not freely merry is not my friend. And to you all, good health!” (he drinks)
Sandys: “Your Grace is noble. Let me have such a bowl may hold my thanks.”
Wolsey: “Cheer your neighbours. Ladies, you are not merry. Gentlemen, whose fault is this?”
Sandys: “The red wine first must rise in their fair cheeks, my lord.”
Anne: “You are a merry gamester, my Lord Sandys.”
Sandys: “Here’s to your ladyship.”
Drums and trumpet
Wolsey: “What’s that?”
Chamberlain: “Look out there.”
Enter a servant
Wolsey: “What warlike voice, and to what end, is this? Nay, ladies, fear not; by all the laws of war you are privileged.”
Chamberlain: “How now? What is it?”
Servant: “A noble root of strangers have left their barge and landed, and hither make, as great ambassadors from foreign princes.”
Wolsey: “Good Lord Chamberlain, go and give them welcome; yo can speak the French tongue; and pray relieve them nobly and conduct them into our presence.”
Enter The King and others as maskers, dressed as shepherds
Wolsey: “A noble company! What are their pleasures?”
Chamberlain: “Because they speak no English, thus they prayed to tell your Grace that, this night to meet here, they could do no less, out of the great respect they bear to beauty, they crave leave to view these ladies and entreat an hour of revels with them.”
Wolsey: “Say, Lord Chamberlain, they have done my poor house grace. Pray them take their pleasures.” (they choose ladies. The King chooses Anne)
King: “The fairest hand I ever touched! O beauty, till now I did never know thee.”
Wolsey: “Pray tell them this much from me: there should be one amongst them, by his person, more worthy this place than myself.”
Chamberlain: “I will, my lord.” (he whispers to the maskers)
Wolsey: “What says they?”
Chamberlain: “Such a one, they all confess, there is indeed; which they would have your Grace find out, and he will take it.”
Wolsey: “Let me see, then. Gentlemen, here I’ll make my royal choice.”
King: (unmasking) “You have found him, Cardinal. You do well, lord. You are a churchman.”
Wolsey: “I am glad your Grace is grown so pleasant.”
King: “My Lord Chamberlain, prithee come hither: what fair lady is that?”
Chamberlain: “Sir Thomas Bullen’s daughter.”
King: “By heaven, she’s a dainty one.”
Wolsey: “Sir Thomas Lovell, is the banquet ready in the Privy Chamber?”
Lovell: “Yes, my lord.”
King: “Lead in your ladies, everyone. Let’s be merry. Good my Lord Cardinal, I have a half dozen healths to drink to these fair ladies, and then let’s dream who is best in favour.”
Summary and Analysis
The lords are headed to a great dinner party hosted by Wolsey. Ladies arrive at the gathering and among them is Anne Bullen. Guests arrived disguised as shepherds and it turns out to be the King and his men. King Henry is immediately taken by the beauty of Anne Bullen, who will, of course, become his next wife and the mother of Shakespeare’s Queen Elizabeth. Queen Katherine, Henry’s wife of 23 years, and Cardinal Wolsey will both fall when they stand in the way of Elizabeth being born. Henry’s relationship with Anne Bullen will not be a long one but it does perform the one great feat required of it, the birth of Princess Elizabeth.
Act II (4 scenes)
Scene i
Westminster. A street.
Enter two gentlemen
1 Gentleman: “Whither away so fast?”
2 Gentleman: “To the Hall, to hear what shall become of the great Duke of Buckingham.”
1 Gentleman: “I’ll save you that labour, sir. All is now done.”
2 Gentleman: “Were you there?”
1 Gentleman: “Yes, indeed I was.”
2 Gentleman: “Pray, speak what has happened.”
1 Gentleman: “You may guess quickly what.”
2 Gentleman: “Is he found guilty?”
1 Gentleman: “Yes, truly he is, and condemned upon it.”
2 Gentleman: “I am sorry for it.”
1 Gentleman: “So are a number more.”
2 Gentleman: “But, pray, how passed it?”
1 Gentleman: “The great Duke came to the bar, where to his accusations he pleaded still not guilty, and alleged many sharp reasons to defeat the law. The King’s attorney, on the contrary, urged on the examinations, proofs, and confessions of witnesses; which the Duke desired to have brought to his face. All these accused him strongly; and so his peers, upon this evidence, have found him guilty of high treason. Much he spoke, and learnedly, for life; but all was either pitied in him or forgotten.”
2 Gentleman: “How did her bear himself?”
1 Gentleman: “When he was brought again to the bar to hear his judgment, he was stirred with such an agony he sweat extremely, and something spoke in choler, ill and hasty; but he fell to himself again, and sweetly in all the rest show’d a most noble patience.”
2 Gentleman: “Certainly the Cardinal is the end of this.”
1 Gentleman: “Tis likely, by all conjecture. This is noted: whoever the King favours the Cardinal instantly will find employment, and far enough from court too.”
2 Gentleman: “All the commons hate him perniciously, and, o my conscience, wish him ten fathoms deep: this Duke as much they love and dote on, calling him bounteous Buckingham, the mirror of all courtesy.”
Enter Buckingham with Sir Thomas Lovell
1 Gentleman: “Stay there, sir, and see the noble ruined man you speak of.”
Buckingham: “All good people, you who thus far have come to pity me, hear what I say, and then go home and lose me. I have this day received a traitor’s judgment, and by that name must die; yet, heaven bear witness, the law I bear no malice for my death, but those who sought it I could wish were more Christian. Be what they will, I heartily forgive them. You few who loved me and dare be bold to weep for Buckingham, go with me like good angels to my end, and lift my soul to heaven.”
Lovell: “I do beseech your Grace, for charity, if ever any malice in your heart were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly.”
Buckingham: “Sir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you as I would be forgiven. I forgive all. No black envy shall mark my grave. My vows and prayers yet are the King’s, and, shall cry for blessings on him. Ever beloved and loving may his rule be; and when old time shall lead him to his end, goodness and he fill up one monument! When I came hither I was Lord High Constable and Duke of Buckingham; not poor Edward. Yet I am richer than my base accusers who never knew what truth meant; my noble father, Henry of Buckingham, who first raised his head against usurping Richard, was by the wretch betrayed and without trial fell; God’s peace be with him! Henry VII succeeding, truly pitying me father’s loss, restored me to my honours, and out of ruins made my name once more noble. Now his son, Henry VIII, life, honour, name and all that made me happy, at one stroke has taken forever from the world. I had my trial, which makes me a little happier than my wretched father; yet thus far we are one in fortunes, fell by men we loved most, a most unnatural and faithless service. Yet, hear me, this from a dying man: where you are liberal of your loves and counsels, be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends and give your hearts to, when the once perceive the least rub in your fortunes, fall away from ye, never found again but where they mean to sink ye. All good people, pray for me! The last hour of my long, weary life is come upon me. Farewell; and when you would say something that is sad, speak how I fell. I have done; and God forgive me!”
Exit Buckingham
1 Gentleman: “O, this is full of pity! It calls, I fear, too many curses on their heads who were the authors.”
2 Gentleman: “I can give you inkling of an ensuing evil, if it fall, greater than this.”
1 Gentleman: “What may it be? Let me have it.”
2 Gentleman: “Did you not of late days hear a buzzing of a separation between the King and Katherine? Either the Cardinal or some about him near have, out of malice to the good Queen, possessed him with a scruple that will undo her.”
1 Gentleman: “Tis the Cardinal; and merely to revenge him on the Emperor for not bestowing on him at his asking the Archbishopric of Toledo.”
2 Gentleman: “I think you have hit the mark. The Cardinal will have his will, and she must fall.”
1 Gentleman: “Tis woeful.”
Summary and Analysis
On the streets of London, two gentlemen discuss the trial of Buckingham and how he has been found guilty and sentenced to die, even though he pleaded eloquently that he was not guilty. They believe that Wolsey is responsible for Buckingham’s fate and agree that they hate Wolsey and wish him dead. Buckingham arrives and speaks to the people assembled, saying that he has been ‘condemned by a traitor’s judgment’, asking the crowd to pray for him. The two gentlemen find Buckingham’s case quiet tragic but then speak of another pending fall of an important person. They have heard that King Henry intends to divorce Queen Katherine and they also believe Cardinal Wolsey is involved in this decision as well. These two gentleman offer a glimpse into the minds and hearts of the commoners when it comes to activity at court. They are very interested and troubled by the fall of Buckingham. Buckingham gives a rousing speech, reflecting his state of mind as he is led to his death. This is typical of important persons in Shakespeare plays as they face their death. Buckingham is only the first to fall from grace. As we hear in the very end of the scene Queen Katherine is next. After all, she has not produced a suitable male heir in her 23 year marriage to King Henry. Her daughter, Mary, will be a Queen, but Henry very much desires a son. Anne Bullen won’t fare much better, but she will give birth to the famous Elizabeth. It will be Henry’s third wife of six, Jane Seymour, who will finally give birth to the male heir, Prince Edward, who will reign as the child king, Edward VI, upon the death of King Henry VIII, to be followed by Queen Mary and finally, Queen Elizabeth.
Act II
Scene ii
London. The palace.
Enter Lord Chamberlain reading a letter.
Chamberlain: “My lord, the horses your lordship sent for, with all the care I had, I saw well chosen, ridden and furnished. They were of the best breed in the north. When they were ready to set out for London, a man of my Lord Cardinal’s, by commission, and main power, took them from me, with this reason: his master would be served before a subject, which stopped our mouths, sir. Well, let him have them. He will have all, I think.”
Suffolk: “How is the King employed?”
Chamberlain: “I left him full of sad thoughts and troubles.”
Norfolk: “What’s the cause?”
Chamberlain: “It seems the marriage with his brother’s wife has crept too near his conscience.”
Suffolk: “No, his conscience has crept too near another lady.”
Norfolk: “Tis so; this is the Cardinal’s doing; the King-Cardinal, that blind priest. The King will know him one day.”
Suffolk: “Pray God he do!”
Norfolk: “For, now he has cracked the league between us and the Emperor, the Queen’s great nephew. He dives into the King’s soul and there scatters dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience, fears and despairs – and all these for his marriage; and out of all these to restore the King. He counsels a divorce, a loss of her that like a jewel has hung twenty years about his neck, yet never lost her lustre; of her who loves him with that excellence that angels love good men with.”
Chamberlain: “Tis most true. These truths are everywhere; every tongue speaks them, and every true heart weeps for it. All that dare look into these affairs and see this main end – the French King’s sister. Heaven will one day open the King’s eyes, that so long have slept upon this bold bad man.”
Suffolk: “And free us from his slavery.”
Norfolk: “We had need pray, and heartily, for our deliverance; or this imperious man will work us all from princes into pages. All men’s honours lie like one lump before him, to be fashioned into what pitch he please.”
Suffolk: “I knew him and I know him; so I leave him to him who made him proud – the Pope.”
Norfolk: “Let’s in; and with some other business put the King from these sad thoughts that work too much upon him.”
Exit Lord Chamberlain
The King draws his curtain and sits reading pensively
Suffolk: “How sad he looks; he is much afflicted.”
King: “Who’s there, ha?”
Norfolk: “Pray God he be not angry.”
King: “Who’s there, I say. How dare you thrust yourselves into my private meditations? Who am I, ha?”
Norfolk: “A gracious King who pardons all offences malice never meant.”
King: “Ye are too bold. Go to; I’ll make ye know your time of business. Is this an hour for temporal affairs, ha?”
Enter Wolsey and Campeius
King: “Who’s there? My good Lord Cardinal? O, my Wolsey, the quiet of my wounded conscience. Thou are a cure fit for a King. (to Campeius) You are welcome, most learned reverend sir, into our kingdom.”
Wolsey: “Sir, I would your Grace would give us but an hour of private conference.”
King: (to Norfolk and Suffolk) “We are busy; go.”
Suffolk: “This cannot continue.”
Norfolk:”If it do, I’ll venture one will have at him.”
Suffolk: “I another.”
Exit Norfolk and Suffolk
Wolsey: “Your Grace has given a precedent of wisdom above all princes, in committing freely your scruple to the voice of Christendom. Who can be angry now? The Spaniard, tied by blood and favour to her, must now confess the trial just and noble. Rome, the nurse of judgment, invited by your noble self, has sent this just and learned priest, cardinal Campeius, whom once more I present unto your Highness.”
King: ” And once more in my arms I bid him welcome, and thank the holy conclave for their loves.”
Campeius: “Your Grace must needs deserve all stranger’s loves, you are so noble. To your Highness’ hand I tender my commission. You, my Lord Cardinal of York, are joined with me their servant in the impartial judging of this business.”
King: “Two equal men. The Queen shall be acquainted forthwith for what you come.”
Wolsey: “I know your majesty has always loved her.”
King: “Ay, and the best she shall have. God forbid else. Cardinal, prithee call Gardiner to me, my new secretary; I find him a fit fellow.”
Wolsey: (an aside to Gardiner) “Give me your hand: and much joy and favour to you; you are the King’s now.”
Gardiner: (an aside to Wolsey) “But to be commanded forever by your Grace, whose hands have raised me.”
King: “Come hither, Gardiner. Deliver this with modesty to the Queen. The most convenient place that I can think of for such receipt of learning is Blackfriars; there ye shall meet about this weighty business. My Wolsey, see it furnished. O, my lord, would it not grieve an able man to leave so sweet a bedfellow? But, conscience, conscience! O, tis a tender place! And I must leave her.”
Summary and Analysis
Lord Chamberlain reads a letter about how Cardinal Wolsey has seized several of Chamberlain’s finest horses. He thinks the Cardinal will eventually take everything from the nobles. Suffolk and Norfolk arrive and they all discuss the state of the King, who seems sad and upset and it seems due to the perilous state of his marriage to Queen Katherine, as Wolsey has suggested to the King that he could annul the marriage, since she was once the wife of his brother and has never produced that desired male heir. Suffolk suggests that the King has his eye on another lady. They are convinced that Wolsey is engineering the dissolution of the royal marriage and hope that the King will awaken to Wolsey’s wicked schemings. Wolsey and Cardinal Campeius, from Rome, meet with the King, who dismisses Norfolk and Suffolk abruptly, before learning that Rome may indeed offer him a way out of his 23 year marriage to Katherine. Henry plans to go to Blackfriars to make the formal announcement about ending his relationship to Katherine. Norfolk, Suffolk and Chamberlain, all powerful lords, are all convinced that is dangerous and untrustworthy. This dissolution of Henry’s marriage will cause a rupture in relations with Spain, from whence she came to England. Wolsey has engineered all of this so that Henry can marry the sister to the King of France. What he does not know is that his King fully intends to marry Anne Bullen.
Act II
Scene iii
London. The palace
Enter Anne Bullen and an old lady
Anne: “Here’s the pang that pinches: his Highness having lived so long with her, and she so good a lady that no tongue could ever pronounce dishonour of her. By my life, she never knew harm-doing and after this to give her the avaunt, it is a pity that would move a monster.”
Old Lady: “Hearts of most hard temper melt and lament for her.”
Anne: “O, God’s will! Much better she had never known pomp. Yet, if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce it from the bearer, tis a sufferance panging as soul and body’s severing.”
Old Lady: “Alas, poor lady! She’s a stranger now again.”
Anne: “So much the more must pity drop upon her. Verily, I swear tis better to be lowly born than to wear a golden sorrow.”
Old Lady: “Our content is our best having.“
Anne: “By my troth and maidenhead, I would not be a queen.”
Old Lady: “Beshrew me, I would, and so would you, for all this spice of your hypocrisy. You that have so fair parts of woman on you have too a woman’s heart, which ever yet affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty; which are blessings.”
Anne: “Nay, good troth.”
Old Lady: “Yes, troth and troth. You would not be a queen!”
Anne: “No, not for all the riches under heaven.”
Old Lady: “But, I pray you, what thinks you of a duchess? Have you limbs to bear that load of title?”
Anne: “No, in truth.”
Old Lady: “Then you are weakly made.”
Anne: “How you do talk! I swear again I would not be a queen for all the world.”
Enter Lord Chamberlain
Chamberlain: “Good morrow, ladies. What were it worth to know the secret of your conference?”
Anne: “Our mistress’ sorrows we were pitying.”
Chamberlin: “There is hope all will be well.”
Anne: “Now, I pray God, amen!”
Chamberlain: “You bear a gentle mind, and heavenly blessings follow such creatures. That you may, fair lady, perceive I speak sincerely, the King’s Majesty commends his good opinion of you to you, and does purpose honour to you no less flowing than Marchioness of Pembroke; to which title a thousand pounds a year, annual support, out of his Grace he adds.”
Anne: “I do not know what kind of my obedience I should tender; prayers and wishes are all I can return. Vouchsafe to speak my thanks and my obedience, as from a blushing handmaid, to his Highness; whose health and royalty I pray for.”
Chamberlain: “Lady, I shall not fail to approve the fair conceit the King has for you.” (aside) “I have perused her well: beauty and honour in her age so mingled that they have caught the King; and who knows yet but from this lady may proceed a gem to lighten all this isle.” “I’ll to the King and say I spoke with you.”
Anne: “My honoured lord!”
Exit Chamberlain
Old Lady: “Why this is it: see, see! I have been begging sixteen years in court; and you, O fate!”
Anne: “This is strange to me.”
Old Lady: “The Marchioness of Pembroke! A thousand pounds a year! By my life, that promises more thousands. By this time I know your back will bear a duchess.”
Anne: “Good lady, make yourself mirth with your particular fancy and leave me out of it. It faints me to think what follows. The Queen is comfortless. Pray, do not deliver what here you have heard to her.”
Old Lady: “What do you think me?”
Summary and Analysis
Anne Bullen and her elderly fellow attendant to the Queen, discuss the apparent downfall of Katherine. Anne is distressed that this lady of great honour is about to fall from grace and wishes that she herself will never rise to such heights. But contrary to her desire the King decides to bestow upon her a new title and an annual income. Buckingham is so taken with Ann that he prophecizes that one day from Anne ‘will proceed a gem, to light all this isle’. Clearly, he is referring to Queen Elizabeth, who Anne and Henry will beget. This is the only scene in which Anne is presented to us. She may not desire to ever be queen, but very soon that is precisely what she will become, following the demise of Katherine. Anne will be wife two of six for King Henry. He will not keep her long, but long enough for the birth of Elizabeth, which is her great claim to fame.
Act II
Scene IV
London. A hall in Blackfriars
Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, several bishops and priests, a Sergeant-at-Arms, a scribe, Cardinals Wolsey and Campeius, King Henry and Queen Katherine
Wolsey: “While our commission from Rome is read, let silence be commanded.”
King: “What’s the need? It has already publicly been read, and on all sides the authority allowed.”
Wolsey: “Be it so: proceed.”
Scribe: “Katherine Queen of England, come into the court.”
Katherine comes to he King and kneels at his feet.
Katherine: “Sir, I desire you do me right and just, and to bestow your pity on me; for I am a most poor woman and a stranger, born out of your dominions, having here no judge indifferent, nor no more assurance of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir, in what have I offended you? What cause has my behaviour given to your displeasure, that thus you should proceed to put me off and take your good Grace from me? Heaven witness, I have been to you a true and humble wife. When was the hour I ever contradicted your desire or made it not mine too? Or which of your friends have I not strove to love, although I knew he were my enemy? What friend of mine that had to him derived your anger did I continue in my liking? Sir, call to mind that I have been your wife in this obedience upward of twenty years, and have been blessed with many children by you. If, in the course and process of this time, you can report and prove it too against my honour, my bond to wedlock or my love and duty, against your sacred person, in God’s name, turn me away and let the foulest contempt shut door upon me, and so give me up to the sharpest kind of justice. Please you, sir, the King, your father, was reputed for a prince most prudent, of an excellent and unmatched wit and judgment; Ferdinand, my father, King of Spain, was reckoned one of the wisest of princes that had reigned. They had gathered a wise council of every realm, that did debate this business, who deemed our marriage lawful. Wherefore I humbly beseech you, sir, to spare me till I may be by my friends in Spain advised, whose counsel I will implore.”
Wolsey: “You have here, lady, these reverend fathers, men of singular integrity and learning, to plead your cause.”
Campeius: “His Grace has spoken well and justly; therefore, madam, it is fit that this royal session do proceed and that, without delay, be heard.”
Queen Katherine: “Lord Cardinal, to you I speak.”
Wolsey: “Your pleasure, madam?”
Queen Katherine: “I am about to weep; but, thinking that we are a queen, certain the daughter of a king, my drops of tears I’ll turn to sparks of fire.”
Wolsey: “Be patient yet.”
Queen Katherine: “I will, when you are humble. I do believe, induced by potent circumstances, that you are my enemy, and you shall not be my judge; for it is you have blown this coal between my lord and me. Therefore I say again, I utterly abhor and from my soul refuse you for my judge, whom yet once more I hold my most malicious foe and think not at all a friend to truth.”
Wolsey: “I do profess you speak not like yourself. Madam, you do me wrong; I have no spleen against you, nor injustice for you or any; how far I have proceeded is warranted by a commission of Rome. You charge me that I have blown this coal: I do deny it. The King is present; if it be known to him that I gainsay my deed, how may he wound, and worthily, my falsehood! He knows I am not of your wrong. Therefore in him it lies to cure me, and the cure to remove these thoughts from you. I do beseech you, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking and to say so no more.”
Queen Katherine: “My lord, my lord, I am a simple woman, much too weak to oppose your cunning. You are meek and humble-mouthed in full seeming, but your heart is crammed with arrogance and pride, and your words serve your will as it please yourself. Again I do refuse you for my judge and here, before you all, appeal unto the Pope, to bring my whole cause before his Holiness and to be judged by him.”
Queen Katherine curtsies to the King and departs
Campeius: “The Queen is obstinate, stubborn to justice, apt to accuse it, and disdainful to be tried by it; tis not well. She’s going away.”
King: “Call her again.”
Crier: “Katherine of England, come into the court.”
Queen Katherine: “I will not tarry; no, nor ever more upon this business my appearance make in any of their courts.”
Exit Queen Katherine
King: “Go thy ways, Kate. That man in the world that shall report he has a better wife, let him in nought be trusted for speaking false in that. Thou art alone – the queen of earthly queens. She’s noble born; and like her true nobility she has carried herself toward me.”
Wolsey: “Most gracious sir, in humblest manner I require your Highness that it should please you to declare in hearing of all these ears whether ever I did broach this business to your Highness, or laid any scruple in your way which might induce you to the question on it, or ever have to you spoke one the least word that might be to the prejudice of her present state, or touch of her good person?”
King: “My Lord Cardinal, I do excuse you; yea, upon my honour, I free you from it. You are not to be taught that you have many enemies who know not why thy are so. By some of these the Queen is put in anger. You are excused. You have ever wished the sleeping of this business; never desired it to be stirred. Now, what moved me to it, I will be bold with time and with your attention. Thus it came – give heed to it: my conscience first received a prick on certain speeches uttered by the French ambassador, who had been hither sent on the debating a marriage between the Duke of Orleans and our daughter Mary, and in the process of this business he did require a respite wherein he might the King his lord advertise whether our daughter were legitimate, respecting this our marriage with sometimes our brother’s wife. This respite shook the bosom of my conscience, entered me, and made to tremble the region of my breast. First, methought I stood not in the smile of heaven, who had commanded nature that my lady’s womb, if it conceived a male child by me, should do more offices of life to it than the grave does to the dead; for her male issue died where they were made. Hence I thought a thought that was a judgment on me. Then follows that I weighed the danger which my palms stood in by this my issue’s fail, and that gave to me many a groaning throe. Thus in the wild sea of my conscience, I did steer toward this remedy, whereupon we are now present here together. I meant to rectify my conscience, when I then did feel full sick. First, I began in private with you, my Lord of Lincoln; you remember how under my oppression I did reek, when I first moved you.”
Lincoln: “Very well, my liege. The question did at fist so stagger me – bearing a state of mighty moment in it and consequence of dread – that I committed the most daring council which you are running here.”
King: “I then moved you, my Lord of Canterbury, and got your leave to make this present summons. For no dislike in the world against the person of the good Queen drives this forward. Prove but our marriage lawful, by my life and kingly dignity, we are contented to wear our mortal state to come with her.”
Campeius: “So please your Highness, the Queen being absent, tis a needful fitness that we adjourn this court till further day.”
King: (Aside) “I may perceive these cardinals trifle with me. I abhor this sloth and tricks of Rome. My learned and well-beloved servant, Cranmer, prithee return. With thy approach I know my comfort comes along – break up the court, I say.”
Summary and Analysis
Many court officials meet at Blackfriars to address the case of King Henry and Queen Katherine’s marriage. She gives a passionate speech asking Henry how she has offended him over the 23 years of marriage. She contends that both their fathers were very wise men when they confirmed the righteousness and legality of their marriage. She then addresses Cardinal Wolsey as her enemy, as she believes he is the cause of this critique of the legitimacy of their marriage. She will not allow him to be the judge in these affairs, as she does not trust him. Wolsey denies that he has anything to do with ending their marriage and asks the King to support him in this, which he does. Katherine wants nothing further to do with these proceedings, believing that she has no power to affect their outcome, and walks out of the room. The King praises her virtues and then explains his concern about the legitimacy of their marriage. Apparently a French ambassador came to inquire about his daughter, Princess Mary, but expressed concerns about her legitimacy. Then he began thinking that perhaps the reason why Queen Katherine had so many stillbirths and produced only a female heir was because his marriage was not deemed legitimate by God, as Katherine had earlier been married to his brother and somewhere in the bible it says you may not marry your deceased brother’s wife. Hence he is seeking a divorce, although he still loves her dearly. So he is done with her, and nothing she can say or do can change this. He does not even reply to her pleas, but rather lets the cardinals answer her. Wolsey clearly wants this marriage to end so that he can arrange for Henry to marry the sister to the King of France. But as we know, the King has other plans. The Cardinal is very unpopular with the nobles and the commoners and he will be the next to fall, following Buckingham and Katherine.
Act III (2 scenes)
Scene i
London. The Queen’s apartments.
Enter the Queen and a gentleman
Gentleman: “The two great cardinals await your presence.”
Queen Katherine: “What can be their business with me, a poor weak woman, fallen from favour? I do not like their coming. They should be good men, but all hoods make not monks.“
Enter the two cardinals
Wolsey: “Peace to your Highness!”
Queen Katherine: “What are you pleasures with me, reverend lords?”
Wolsey: “May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw into your private chamber.”
Queen Katherine: “Speak it here; there is nothing I have done yet, o my conscience, that deserves a corner. My lords, I care not if my actions were tried by every tongue, and every eye saw them; I know my life so even. If your business seeks me out, out with it boldly.”
Wolsey: “Noble lady, we come not by the way of accusation, nor to betray you any way to sorrow – You have too much, good lady; but to know how you stand minded in the weighty difference between the King and you, and to deliver our just opinions and comforts to your cause.”
Campeius: “Most honoured madam, my Lord of York, out of his noble nature, forgetting, like a good man, your late censure, both of his truth and him, offers, as I do, in a sign of peace, his service and his counsel”
Queen Katherine: (aside) “To betray me” – “My lords, I thank you both; ye speak like honest men; pray God you prove so! But how to make ye suddenly an answer, in such a point of weight, so near my honour, more near my life, I fear, with my weak wit, and to such men of gravity and learning, in truth I know not. Alas, I am a woman, friendless and hopeless!”
Wolsey: “Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears; your hopes and friends are infinite.”
Queen Katherine: “In England can you think, lords, that any Englishmen dare give me counsel or be a known friend, against his Highness’ pleasure? Nay, forsooth, my friends, they that my trust must grow to, live not here; they are, as all my other comforts, far hence, in my own country, lords.”
Campeius: “Put your main cause into the King’s protection; he’s loving and most gracious.”
Wolsey: “He tells you rightly.”
Queen Katherine: “Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye! Heaven is above all yet: there sits a judge who no king can corrupt.”
Campeius: “Your rage mistakes us.”
Queen Katherine: “The more shame for ye; holy men I thought ye, upon my soul; but cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye. I will not wish thee half my miseries. Take heed, for heaven’s sake take heed, lest at once the burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.”
Wolsey: “Madam, you turn the good we offer into envy.”
Queen Katherine: “Ye turn me into nothing. Woe upon ye. Would you have me put my sick cause into his hands who hates me? Alas! He has banished me from his bed already. What can happen to me above this wretchedness?”
Campeius: “Your fears are worse.”
Queen Katherine: “Have I lived this long a wife, a true one? A woman, I dare say without vain-glory, never yet branded with suspicion? Have I with all my full affections loved him, obeyed him and almost forgot my prayers to content him, and am thus rewarded?”
Wolsey: “Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.”
Queen Katherine: “My lord, I dare not give up willingly that noble title your master wed me to: nothing but death shall ever divorce my dignities.”
Wolsey: “Pray, hear me.”
Queen Katherine: “Would I had never trod this English earth, or felt the flatteries that grow upon it! Ye have angel’s faces, but heaven knows your hearts. What will become of me now, wretched lady? I am the most unhappy woman living. Shipwrecked upon a kingdom, where no pity, no friends, no hope; no kindred weep for me. I’ll hang my head and perish.”
Wolsey: “If your Grace could but be brought to know our ends are honest, you’d feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady, upon what cause, wrong you? We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow them. Pray think us peace-makers, friends and servants.”
Campeius: “Madam, you’ll find it so. The King loves you; beware you lose it not. For us, we are ready to use our utmost studies in your service.”
Queen Katherine: “Do what ye will, my lords; you know I am a woman, lacking wit to make a seemly answer to such persons. Pray do my service to his Majesty; he has my heart yet, and shall have my prayers while I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers, bestow your counsels on me; she now begs that little thought, when she set footing here, she should have bought her dignities so dear.”
Summary and Analysis
Cardinals Wolsey and Campeius come to see the Queen, but not to further accuse her but to offer advice regarding the dissolution of her marriage to he King. Their advice is that she trust the King to look after her after the divorce. They claim to want to help cure her suffering by ensuring that she remain in the King’s good graces since he loves her still. Katherine sees through the Cardinals’ banter and knows that they are not there to help her. She tells them that they are corrupt and reminds them that there is a higher judge above them in heaven. She is appalled at their suggestion that she put her hope and faith into the very man who has rejected her, even though she was never anything to him but loving and loyal and now wishes she had never come to England. Clearly Katherine will not be disposed of as serenely as Buckingham. She has done nothing wrong except not to have produced a male heir, which may be just an excuse so that he can fulfill his attraction to Ann Bullen, with the help of the cardinals and the church. Once again, anyone who stands in the way of the birth of the future Queen Elizabeth must be sacrificed in this play, and it’s now two down and one to go.
Act III
Scene ii
London. The palace.
Enter the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlain.
Norfolk: “If you will now unite in your complaints and force them with a constancy, the Cardinal cannot stand under them.”
Surrey: “I am joyful to be revenged on him.”
Suffolk: “When did he regard the stamp of nobleness in any person outside of himself?”
Chamberlain: “My lords, what he deserves of you and me I know; what we can do to him I much fear. If you cannot bar his access to the King, never attempt anything on him; for he has a witchcraft over the King in his tongue.”
Norfolk: “O, fear him not! His spell in that is out; the King has found matters against him.”
Surrey: “Sir, I should be glad to hear such news as this once every hour.”
Norfolk: “Believe it, this is true: in the divorce his country proceedings are all unfolded; wherein he appears as I would wish my enemy.”
Suffolk: “The Cardinal’s letters to the Pope miscarried, and came to the eye of the King; wherein was read how that the Cardinal did entreat his Holiness to stay the judgment of the divorce; for if it did take place ‘I do’ quote he ‘perceive my King is tangled in affection to a creature of the Queen’s, Lady Anne Bullen.”
Chamberlain: “The King already has married the fair lady.”
Suffolk: “There’s order given for her coronation. She is a gallant creature, and complete in mind and fear. I persuade me from her will fall some blessing to this land.”
Surrey: “But will the King digest this letter of the Cardinal’s? The Lord forbid!”
Suffolk: “No, no; there will be more wasps that buzz about his nose will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius is stolen away to Rome.”
Norfolk: “He is returned, in his opinions; which have satisfied the King for his divorce. Shortly, I believe, his second marriage shall be published. Katherine no more shall be called queen.”
Enter Wolsey and Cromwell
Suffolk: “The Cardinal!”
Norfolk: “Observe, observe, he’s moody.”
Wolsey: “The packet, Cromwell, gave it you the King?”
Cromwell: “To his own hand, in his bedchamber.”
Wolsey: “Looked he on the inside of the paper?”
Cromwell: “He did unseal them; and the first he viewed, he did it with a serious mind; a heed was in his countenance. You he bade attend him here this morning.”
Wolsey: “Leave me awhile.”
Exit Wolsey and Cromwell separately.
Wolsey: (aside) “It shall be to the French King’s sister; he shall marry her. Anne Bullen! No, I’ll no Anne Bullen for him. Speedily I wish to hear from Rome.”
Norfolk: “He’s discontented.”
Suffolk: “Maybe he hears the King does whet his anger to him.”
Wolsey: (aside) “The late Queen’s gentlewoman, a knight’s daughter, to be her mistress’ mistress! The Queen’s Queen! This candle burns not clear. Tis I must snuff it; then out it goes. I know her for a sleepy Lutheran; and not wholesome to our cause that she should lie in the bosom of our hard-ruled King. And there is sprung up a heretic, Cranmer, who has crawled into the favour of the King, and is now his oracle.”
Norfolk: “He is vexed at something.”
Enter the King
Suffolk: “The King, the King!”
King: “What piles of wealth has he accumulated to his own portion? And what expense by the hour seems to flow from him! Now, my lords, saw you the Cardinal?”
Norfolk: “My lord, we have stood here observing him. Some strange commotion is in his brain. In most strange postures we have seen him set himself.”
King: “It may well be there is a mutiny in his mind. This morning papers of state he sent me to peruse I found there – put unwillingly? Forsooth, an inventory of his treasure, which I find at such proud rate that it outspeaks possession of a subject.”
Norfolk: “Its heaven’s will; some spirit put this paper in the packet to bless your eye withal.”
Re-enter the Cardinal
Wolsey: “God bless your Highness.”
King: “Good, my lord, you are full of heaven stuff. You have scarce time to steal from spiritual leisure a brief span to keep your earthly audit; I deem you an ill husband and am glad to have you therein my companion.”
Wolsey: “For holy offices I have a time.”
King: “And yet words are no deeds. My father loved you: since I had my office I have kept you next to my heart, to bestow my bounties upon you.”
Wolsey: (aside) “What should this mean?”
King: “Have I not made you the prime man of the state? Say withal if you are bound to us or no.”
Wolsey: “My sovereign, I confess your royal graces, showered on me daily, have been more than could my studied purposes requite. My own ends have been mine so that evermore they pointed to the good of your most sacred person and the profit of the state. For your great graces heaped upon me, poor undeserved, I can nothing render but allegiant thanks; my prayers to heaven for you; my loyalty, which ever has and ever shall be growing, till death, that winter, kill it.”
King: “Fairly answered! A loyal and obedient subject is therein illustrated. I presume that, as my hand has opened bounty to you, my heart dropped love, my power rained honour, more on you than any, so your hand and heart, your brain, and every function of your power should be more to me, your friend, than any.”
Wolsey: “I do profess that for your Highness’ good I ever laboured more than my own.”
King: “Tis nobly spoken. Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast, for you have seen him open it. Read over this:”
The King gives Wolsey papers.
King: “And after, this; and then to breakfast with what appetite you have.”
Exit the King, frowning upon the Cardinal
Wolsey: “What should this mean? What sudden anger is this? He parted frowning at me, as if ruin leaped from his eyes. I must read this paper; I fear, the story of his anger. Tis so; this paper has undone me. Tis the account of all that world of wealth I have drawn together for my own ends; indeed, to gain the Popedom, and fee my friends in Rome. O negligence, fit for a fool to fall by! Is there no way to cure this? No new device to beat this from his brains? Nay, then farewell! I have touched the highest point of all my greatness, and from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting. I shall fall like a bright exhalation in the evening, and no man see me more.”
Enter Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey and Chamberlain
Norfolk: “Hear the King’s pleasure, Cardinal, who commands you to render up the great seal presently into our hands, and to confine yourself till you hear further from his Highness.”
Wolsey: “Now I feel of what coarse metal ye are moulded – envy; how eagerly ye follow my disgraces, as if it fed ye; and how sleek and wanton ye appear in everything may bring my ruin! Follow our envious courses, men of malice.”
Surrey: “Thou art a proud traitor, priest. Thy ambition, thou scarlet sin, robbed this bewailing land of noble Buckingham, my father in law. The heads of all thy brother cardinals weighed not a hair of his. Plague of your policy!”
Wolsey: “This, and all else this talking lord can lay upon my credit, I answer is most false. The Duke by law found his desserts; how innocent I was from any private malice in his end.”
Surrey: “By my soul, your long coat, priest, protects you; thou should feel my sword in the life-blood of thee else. My lords, can ye endure to hear this arrogance? And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely, to be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet, farewell nobility!”
Wolsey: “All goodness is poison to thy stomach.”
Surrey: “Yes, that goodness of gleaning all the land’s wealth into one, into your own hands, Cardinal, by extortion; the goodness of your intercepted packets you wrote to the Pope against the King. My Lord of Norfolk, as you are truly noble and respect the common good, produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles collected from his life.”
Wolsey: “How much, methinks, I could despise this man, but that I am bound in charity against it!”
Norfolk: “Those articles, my lord, are in the King’s hand; but, thus much, they are foul ones.”
Wolsey: “So much fairer and spotless shall my innocence arise, when the King knows my truth.”
Surrey: “This cannot save you. Now, if you can blush and cry guilty, cardinal, you’ll show a little honesty. Without the King’s assent or knowledge you wrought to be a legate.”
Norfolk: “In all you wrote to Rome, you brought the King to be your servant.”
Suffolk: “Without the knowledge of either King or council you went ambassador to the Emperor. Out of mere ambition you caused your holy hat to be stamped on the King’s coin.”
Surrey: “Then you have sent innumerable substance to furnish Rome to the mere undoing of all the kingdom. Many more there are, which, since they are odious, I will not taint my mouth with.”
Chamberlain: “O my lord, press not a falling man too far! His faults lie open to the laws, let them, not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him so little of his great self.”
Surrey: “I forgive him.”
Suffolk: “Lord Cardinal, the King’s further pleasure is – because all those things you have done of late – that therefore such a writ be sued against you: to forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements, chattels, and whatsoever, and to be out of the King’s protection. This is my charge.”
Norfolk: “And so we’ll leave you to your meditations how to live better. So fair you well, my little good Lord Cardinal.”
Exit all but Wolsey
Wolsey: “So farewell to the little good you bear me. Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness! this is the state of man: today he puts forth the tender leaves of hopes; tomorrow blossoms and bears his blushing honours thick upon him; the third day comes a frost, a killing frost, and when he thinks full surely his greatness is ripening he falls, as I do. I have ventured, this many summers in a sea of glory; but far beyond my depth. My high blown pride at length broke under me, and now has left me, weary and old with service. Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye; I feel my heart new-opened. O, how wretched is that poor man who hangs on princes’ favours! When he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again.”
Enter Cromwell
Cromwell: “I have no power to speak, sir.”
Wolsey: “What, amazed at my misfortunes?”
Cromwell: “How does your Grace?”
Wolsey: “Why, well; I know myself now, and I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience. The King has cured me, and from these shoulders, out of pity, taken a load would sink a navy – O, tis a burden, Cromwell, tis a burden too heavy for a man who hopes for heaven!”
Cromwell: “I am glad your Grace has made that right use of it.”
Wolsey: “I hope I have. I am able now, methinks, out of a fortitude of soul I feel, to endure more miseries and greater far than my week-hearted enemies dare offer. What news?”
Cromwell: “The heaviest and the worst is your displeasure with the King. The next is that Sir Thomas More is chosen Lord Chancellor in your place.”
Wolsey: “That’s somewhat sudden. May he continue long in his Highness’ favour, and do justice for truth’s sake and his conscience. What more?”
Cromwell: “That Cranmer is returned with welcome, installed Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.”
Wolsey: “That’s news indeed.”
Cromwell: “Last, that the Lady Anne, whom the King has in secrecy long married, this day was viewed in open as his Queen; and the voice is now only about her coronation.”
Wolsey: “There was the weight that pulled me down. Go get thee from me, Cromwell; I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now to be thy lord and master. Seek the King; that sun, I pray, may never set! He will advance thee; good Cromwell, neglect him not, and provide for thy own future safety.”
Cromwell: “O, my lord, must I then leave you? Must I needs forgo so good, so noble and so true a master? That King shall have my service; but my prayers forever and forever shall be yours.”
Wolsey: “Cromwell, I did nothing to shed a tear in all my miseries, but thou has forced me, out of thy honest truth, to play the woman. Let’s dry our eyes, Cromwell. I charge thee, fling away ambition: by that sin fell the angels. Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee; corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace to silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not; let all the ends thou aims at be thy country’s, thy God’s, and truths; then, if thou falls, O Cromwell, thou falls a blessed martyr! Serve the King, take an inventory of all I have to the last penny; tis the King’s. My robe, and my integrity to heaven, is all I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my King, he would not in my age have left me naked to my enemies.”
Cromwell: “Good sir, have patience.”
Wolsey: “So I have. Farewell. My hopes in heaven do dwell.”
Summary and Analysis
Norfolk suggests to several lords that they unite their grievances against Cardinal Wolsey now that he has become exposed for his under-handed scheming about King Henry’s divorce. Apparently Wolsey petitioned to the Pope that he forbid the divorce until Wolsey can convince Henry to marry the sister of the King of France rather than Anne Bullen. Suffolk speaks fondly of Anne, believing that one day ‘from her will fall some blessings to this land.’ Indeed, this play is all about Henry and Anne producing Princess and future Queen Elizabeth. Wolsey arrives and insists that he will ensure Henry shall never marry Anne. Hence, he is doomed. Henry arrives and banters with Wolsey about loyalty and service and then hands him the letters Wolsey sent to the Pope that were intercepted and presented to Henry and a second letter describing Wolsey’s immense wealth. The Cardinal immediately realizes that he is finished, as several lords inform him that he is to resign his post and be confined in his home. They also present him with various dangerous accusations and then depart to inform the King of everything. Alone, Wolsey offers meditations of the fate of man. Cromwell arrives and commiserates with Wolsey, who claims to be at peace. Informed by Cromwell that the King has married Anne Bullen, the Cardinal weeps and advises Cromwell to ‘fling away ambition, to love himself last, to cherish those who hate him, and to be just’. His hopes now in heaven dwell. Cardinal Wolsey has gone the way of Lord Buckingham and Queen Katherine. In the final analysis he appears to have redeemed himself in his contrite confessions and advise to Cromwell. All three condemned characters learn something about themselves and their predicament before their final demise. However, just previous to his contrition were boastful and devious responses to the accusations from the lords and professed innocence and loyalty to the King himself. Farewell Wolsey.
Act IV (2 scenes)
Scene I
A street in Westminster
Enter two gentlemen
1 Gentleman: “You come to take your stand here and behold the Lady Anne pass from her coronation?”
2 Gentleman: “Tis all my business. At our last encounter the Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.”
1 Gentleman: “Tis very true. But that time offered sorrow; this, general joy.”
2 Gentleman: “Tis well. The citizens have shown full their royal minds in celebration of this day with shows, pageants and sights of honour.”
1 Gentleman: “Never greater.”
2 Gentleman: “May I be bold to ask what that contains, that paper in your hand?”
1 Gentleman: “Yes; tis the list of those who claim their offices this day, by custom of the coronation. The Duke of Suffolk claims to be High Steward; next, the Duke of Norfolk, he to be Earl Marshall.”
2 Gentleman: “But, I beseech you, what’s become of Katherine? How goes her business?”
1 Gentleman: “That I can tell you too. She was divorced, since which she was removed to Kimbolton, where she remains now sick.”
2 Gentleman: “Alas, good lady! The trumpet sounds. Stand close, the Queen is coming. (looking on the Queen) Heaven bless thee! Thou has the sweetest face I ever looked on. She is an angel and I cannot blame his conscience.”
Enter a third gentleman
1 Gentleman: “God save you, sir! Where have you been?”
3 Gentleman: “Among the crowd in the Abbey, where a finger could not be wedged in more.”
2 Gentleman: “You saw the ceremony?”
3 Gentleman: “That I did.”
1 Gentleman: “How was it?”
3 Gentleman: “Well worth the seeing.”
2 Gentleman: “Good sir, speak it to us.”
3 Gentleman: “As well as I am able. Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman who ever lay by man. Such joy I never saw before.”
2 Gentleman: “But what followed?”
3 Gentleman: At length her Grace rose, came to the altar, where she kneeled, and saint-like cast her fair eyes to heaven, and prayed devoutly. By the Archbishop of Canterbury she had all the royal makings of a queen: as holy oil, Edward Confessor’s crown, the rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems played nobly on her; which performed, the choir, with all the choicest music of the kingdom. So she parted, back again to York Place, where the feast is held.”
1 Gentleman: “Sir, you must no more call it York Place: that’s past; for since the Cardinal fell that title’s lost. Tis now the King’s, and called Whitehall.”
Summary and Analysis
These two gentlemen meet on the street and discuss Queen Anne and her coronation. They are both quite enamoured with Anne. A third gentleman arrives who has just witnessed the coronation and tells them how beautiful Anne appeared and how absolutely packed the Abbey was. Once again these gentlemen represent the general population and just how keen the citizens are to hear news from the court.
Act IV
Scene ii
Kimbolton
Enter Katherine, with Griffith, her gentleman, and Patience, her lady.
Griffith: “How does your Grace?”
Katherine: “O Griffith, sick to death! My legs like loaded branches bow to the earth, willing to leave their burden. Did thou not tell me that the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey, was dead?”
Griffith: “Yes, madam.”
Katherine: “Prithee, good Griffith, tell me how he died. If well, he stepped before me, happily, for my example.”
Griffith: “Well, madam, after the stout Earl of Northumberland arrested him at York and brought him forward, as a man sorely tainted, to his answer, he fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill he could not sit his mule.
Katherine: “Alas, poor man!”
Griffith: “At last he came to Leicester, lodged in the abbey; where the reverend abbot honourably received him; to whom he gave these words: ‘O father Abbot, an old man, broken with the storms of state, is come to lay his weary bones among ye. Give him a little earth for charity!’ So went to bed, where eagerly his sickness pursued him still. And three nights after this, full of repentance, continual meditations, tears and sorrows, his blessed parts went to heaven, and slept in peace.”
Katherine: “So may he rest. Griffith, give me leave to speak of him yet with charity. He was a man ever ranking himself with princes; his own opinion was his law. In the presence he would say untruths and be forever double both in his words and meaning. He was never pitiful. His promises were mighty; but his performance nothing. He gave the clergy ill example.”
Griffith: “Noble madam, may it please your Highness to hear me speak his good now?”
Katherine: “Yes, good Griffith.”
Griffith: “This Cardinal was a scholar and a ripe and good one; exceedingly wise, fair spoken and persuading; lofty and sour to them who loved him not. And though he was unsatisfied in getting – which was a sin – yet in bestowing, madam, he was most princely; and, to add greater honours to his age, he died fearing God.”
Katherine: “After my death I wish no other herald. Griffith, peace be with him! Patience, be near me still; I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith, cause the musicians to play me that sad note, while I sit meditating on that celestial harmony I go to.”
Sad and solemn music
Griffith: “She is asleep. Good Patience, let’s sit quietly, for fear we wake her.”
The Vision: Enter six personages clad in white robes and golden vizards on their faces. The first two hold a spare garland over her head, at which the other four make reverent curtsies. As it were by inspiration, she makes in her sleep signs of rejoicing, and holds up her hands to heaven. And so in their dancing thy vanish.
Katherine: “Spirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone? And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?”
Griffith: “Madam, we are here.”
Katherine: “It is not you I call for. Saw ye none enter since I slept?”
Griffith: “None, madam.”
Katherine: “No? They promised me eternal happiness, and brought me garlands.”
Griffith: “I am much joyful, madam, such good dreams possess your fancy.”
Patience: “Do you note how much her Grace is altered on the sudden? How pale she looks, and of an earthly cold! Mark her eyes.”
Griffith: “She is going, wench. Pray, pray.”
Patience: “Heaven comfort her.”
Enter a messenger
Messenger: “There is a gentleman, sent from the King, to see you.”
Katherine: “Admit him entrance, Griffith.”
Enter Lord Capucius
Katherine: “If my sight fail not, you should be the Lord Ambassador from the Emperor, my royal nephew, and your name Capucius.”
Capucius: “Madam, the same – your servant.”
Katherine: “I pray you, what is your pleasure with me?”
Capucius: “Noble lady, first, my own service to your Grace; next, the KIng’s request that I would visit you, who grieves much for your weakness, and by me sends you his princely commendations and heartily entreats you to take good comfort.”
Katherine: “O my good lord, that comfort comes too late; tis like a pardon after execution; I am past all comforts here but prayers. How does his Highness?”
Capucius: “Madam, in good health.”
Katherine: “So may he ever do! And ever flourish when I shall dwell with worms and my poor name banished from the kingdom! Patience, is that letter I caused you to write yet sent away?”
Patience: “No, madam.”
Giving the letter to Katherine
Katherine: “Sir, I most humbly pray you to deliver this to my lord the King, in which I have commended to his goodness the model of our chase loves, his young daughter – the dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her – beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding – she is young and of a noble and modest nature. Urge the King to do me this last right.”
Capucius: “By heaven, I will.”
Katherine: “I thank you, honest lord. Remember me in all humility unto his Highness; say that his long trouble now is passing out of this world. Tell him in death I blessed him, for so I will. My eyes grow dim. Farewell, my lord. Griffith, farewell. Nay, Patience, you must not leave me yet. I must to bed; call in more women. When I am dead strew me over with maiden flowers, that all the world may know I was a chaste wife to my grave. Embalm me, although unqueened, yet like a queen, and daughter to a king, inter me. I can no more.”
Summasy and Analysis
Katherine learns from her servants all about the death of Cardinal Wolsey, who died a sick and broken man. She tries to be charitable but does insist that he was opinionated, untruthful and a poor example of a clergyman. Griffith, her gentleman, speaks well of him as a scholar and claims he died a God fearing man. Katherine wishes him peace ‘in his ashes’. She falls asleep and has visions of persons in white robes dancing around her. When she wakes they are gone. Her attendants believe this vision to be a very good sign, as she is approaching the end of her life. An ambassador from Katherine’s father in Spain arrives, having been sent by Henry to check on her. She claims it is too late, as she is dying. She offers him a letter for the King, in which she pleads on behalf of their daughter, Mary, that she be well cared for, being of a noble and modest nature. This will be Bloody Queen Mary, the second of King Henry’s three children to assume the throne, the third being Queen Elizabeth.
Act V (5 scenes)
Scene I
London. The palace.
Enter Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, a pageboy and Sir Thomas Lovell.
Gardiner: “It’s one o’clock boy, isn’t it?”
Page: “It has struck.”
Gardiner: “These should be hours for necessities; times to repair our nature with comforting repose. Good hour of night, Sir Thomas!”
Lovell: “Came you from the King, my lord?”
Gardiner: “I did, Sir Thomas, and left him at primero with the Duke of Suffolk.”
Lovell: “I must to him too. I’ll take my leave.”
Gardiner: “What’s the matter? It seems you are in haste. Affairs that walk – as they say spirits do – at midnight, have in them a wilder nature than the business that seeks dispatch by day.“
Lovell: “My lord, I love you, and do commend a secret to your ear. The Queen is in labour, they say in great extremity, and feared she’ll with the labour end.”
Gardiner: “The fruit she goes with I pray for heartily.”
Lovell: “Methinks I could cry thee amen; my conscience says she’s a good creature, and, sweet lady, does deserve our better wishes.”
Gardiner: “Hear me, Sir Thomas. I know you wise and religious; and, let me tell you, it will never be well till Cranmer, Cromwell, her two hands, and she, sleep in their graves.”
Lovell: “Now, sir, you speak of two of the most remarked in the kingdom. As for Cromwell, he is made Master of the Rolls and the King’s secretary. The Archbishop is the King’s hand and tongue, and who dares speak one syllable against him?”
Gardiner: “Yes, yes, Sir Thomas, there are that dare; and I myself have ventured to speak my mind of him; and indeed this day I think I have incensed the lords of the council that he is – for so I know he is – a most arch heretic, a pestilence who does infect the land. The King has so far given ear to our complaint. He’s a rank weed, Sir Thomas, and we must root him out.”
Enter the King and the Duke of Suffolk
King: “Lovell, from the Queen what is the news?”
Lovell: “Her sufferance made almost each pang a death.”
Suffolk: “God safely quit her of her burden and to the gladding of your Highness with an heir!”
Enter Sir Anthony Denny
Denny: “Sir, I have brought my lord, the Archbishop, as you commanded me.”
King: “Ha! Canterbury?”
Denny: “Ay, my good lord.”
King: “Bring him to us.”
Re-enter Denny with Cranmer
Cranmer: (aside) “I am fearful – wherefore frowns he thus? Tis his aspect of terror. All’s not well.”
King: “How now, my lord? Pray you, arise, my good and gracious Lord of Canterbury. Come, you and I must walk a turn together; I have news to tell you; come, come, give me your hand. Ah, my good lord, I grieve at what I speak, and am right sorrow to repeat what follows. I have, and most unwillingly, of late heard many grievous complaints of you; which, being considered, have moved us and our council that you shall this morning come before us. Till further trial in those charges which will require your answer, you must take your patience to you and be well contented to make your house our Tower.”
Cranmer: “I know there’s none stands under more calumnious tongues than I myself.”
King: “Stand up, good Canterbury; thy truth and thy integrity is rooted in us, thy friend. Give me thy hand; prithee, let’s walk. My lord, I looked you would have given me your petition that I should have taken some pains to bring together yourself and your accusers, and to have heard you without endurance further.”
Cranmer: “Most dread liege, the good I stand on is my truth and honesty; I fear nothing that can be said against me.”
King: “Know you not how your state stands in the world? Your enemies are many, and not small; you are potently opposed, and with a malice of as great size.”
Cranmer: “God and your majesty protect my innocence, or I fall into the trap that is laid for me!”
King: “Be of good cheer; they shall no more prevail than we give way to. Keep comfort to you, and this morning see you do appear before them. If entreaties will render you no remedies, this ring deliver them, and your appeal to us there make before them. Get you gone, and do as I have bid you.
Exit Cranmer
King: “Now, by thy looks I guess thy message. Is the Queen delivered? Say ay, and of a boy.”
Old Lady: “Ay, ay, my liege; and of a lovely boy. The God of heaven both now and ever bless her! Tis a girl, promises boys hereafter. Sir, your Queen desires your visitation, and to be acquainted with this stranger; tis as like you as cherry is to cherry.”
Summary and Analysis
We learn from Lovell that Queen Anne is in labour. He believes she is not sufficiently royal to bear the King’s heirs. Gardiner goes even further, believing that England will not be secure until she is dead, along with Cranmer and Cromwell. They are pleased that Cranmer will be appearing before the King’s council and denounced as a heretic. The King meets with Cranmer and assures him that he remains in the King’s favour, regardless of the many powerful enemies who surround him at court. Nonetheless, he will need to reside in the Tower until he addresses the charges. Henry gives him a royal ring to show the council if they are about to send him to his death, so that the King would then intervene and hear his appeal. An old lady appears to tell the King that his child has been born. He demands to know if it is a boy and at first she claims it is and then corrects herself, and he hurries to see the baby Elizabeth, the real star of the play. The nurse did not merely mistakenly identify Elizabeth as a male. It is an indication that she will reign as well as any man one day soon.
Act V
Scene ii
Lobby before the Council Chamber
Enter Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury)
Cranmer: “I hope I am not too late. What means this? Who waits hear? Sure you know me?”
Enter keeper
Keeper: “Yes, my lord; but yet I cannot help you.”
Cranmer: “Why?”
Keeper: “Your Grace must wait till you be called for.”
Enter Doctor Butts
Cranmer: “Tis Butts, the King’s physician. For certain, this is of purpose laid by some who hate me – God turn their hearts! I never sought their malice – to quench my honour, they would shame to make me wait at the door, among boys, grooms and lackeys. But their pleasures must be fulfilled, and I attend with patience.”
Enter the King and Dr Butts at a window above.
Butts: “I’ll show your Grace the strangest sight.”
King: “What’s that, Butts?”
Butts: “There my lord: his Grace of Canterbury; holds his state at door, amongst pages and footboys.”
King: “Ha, tis him indeed. Tis well there’s one above him yet. I had thought they had parted so much honesty among them – at least good manners – as not thus to suffer a man of his place, and so near our favour. By holy Mary, Butts, there’s knavery! Let them alone, and draw the curtain close; we shall hear more anon.”
Summary and Analysis
Cranmer arrives for the council meeting but is informed he must wait outside with the grooms and lackeys. Obviously something is afoot. The King and his doctor, Butts, (yes… Dr Butts!) watch from a window above as Cranmer is disgraced and Henry is unimpressed that someone so in his favour would be mistreated thus, referring to it as knavery. Henry also states that there is fortunately still one above them who will judge his fate, referring to either himself or God. The King does not intervene but merely watches and listens. Cranmer will be the first character under accusation who will survive their trials. Unlike Buckingham, Katherine or Wolsey, Cranmer has not committed any acts worthy of being demoted or destroyed. The charges against him are merely petty and personal. He also in no way stands in the way of the birth of Elizabeth.
Act V
Scene iii
The Council Chamber
Enter the Lord Chancellor, Suffolk, Norfolk, Surrey, Chamberlain, Gardiner, Cromwell and a keeper.
Chancellor: “Speak to the business, master secretary; why are we met in council?”
Cromwell: “The chief cause concerns his Grace of Canterbury.”
Norfolk: “Who waits there?”
Keeper: “My Lord Archbishop; and has done half an hour, to know your pleasures.”
Chancellor: “My good Lord Archbishop, I am very sorry to sit here at this present, but we are all men, in our own natures frail and capable of our flesh; few are angels; out of which frailty and want of wisdom, you, who best should teach us, have misdemeaned yourself, and not a little, toward the King first, then his laws, in filling the whole realm by your teaching – for so we are informed – with new opinions dangerous; which are heresies, and, not reformed, may prove pernicious.”
Gardiner: “Which reformation must be sudden too, my noble lords; for those who tame wild horses pace them not in their hands to make them gentle, but stop their mouths with stubborn bits and spur them till they obey the manage. if we suffer this contagious sickness, farewell all physic; and what follows then? Commotions, uproars, with a general taint of the whole state.”
Cranmer: “My good lords, in all of my life and office, I have laboured that my teaching was ever to do well. Nor is there living, my lords, a man who more detests defacers of a public peace than I do. Pray heaven the King may never find a heart with less allegiance in it!”
Gardiner: “My lord, we will be short with you. Tis our Highness’ pleasure and our content you be committed to the Tower; where, being but a private man again, you shall know many dare accuse you boldly, more than, I fear, you are provided for.”
Cromwell: “My lord of Winchester, you are a little too sharp; men so noble, however faulty, yet should find respect for what they have been.”
Gardiner: “You may, worst of all this table, say so.”
Cromwell: “Why, my lord?”
Gardiner: “You are not sound.”
Cromwell: “Would you were half so honest!”
Gardiner: “I shall remember this bold language.”
Cromwell: “Do remember your bold life too.”
Chancellor: “This is too much; forbear, for shame, my lords.”
Gardiner: “I have done.”
Cromwell: “And I.”
Chancellor: “Thus for you, my lord; it stands agreed, that forthwith you be conveyed to the Tower a prisoner; there to remain till the King’s further pleasure be known unto us. Are you all agreed, lords?”
Gardiner: “What other would you expect? You are strangely troublesome.”
Enter the guard
Cranmer: “Must I go like a traitor thither?”
Gardiner: “Receive him, and see him safe in the Tower.”
Cranmer: “Stay, good my lords, I have a little yet to say. Look there; 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.”
Chamberlain: “This is the King’s ring.”
Suffolk: “I told you all, when we first put this dangerous stone a rolling, t’would fall upon ourselves.”
Enter he King, frowning on the lords.
Gardiner: “Dread sovereign, how much are we bound to heaven in daily thanks, that gave us such a prince; not only good and wise but most religious.”
King: “You were ever good at sudden commendations, Bishop of Winchester. But know I come not to hear such flattery, and in my presence they are too thin and bare to hide offences. Whatsoever thou takes me for, I am sure thou has a cruel nature and a bloody one. (to Cranmer) Good man, sit down.”
Surrey: “May it please your Grace -“
King: “No, sir, it does not please me. I had thought I had men of some understanding and wisdom in my council; but I find none. Was it discretion, lords, to let this man, this good man – few of you deserve that title – this honest man, wait like a lousy footboy at chamber door? Why, what a shame was this! Did my commission forget yourselves? I gave you power as he was a councillor to try him, not as a groom. There are some of you, I see, more out of malice than integrity, would try him to the utmost, had you means; which you shall never have while I live. My lords, respect him; take him and use him well. He is worthy of it. I am for his love and service so to him. All embrace him; be friends, for shame, my lords! My Lord of Canterbury, I have a suit which you must not deny me: that is, a fair young maid who yet wants baptism; you must be godfather, and answer for her.”
Cranmer: “How may I deserve it, who am a poor and humble subject to you?”
King: “Once more, my Lord of Winchester, I charge you, embrace and love this man.”
Gardiner: “With a true heart and brother love I do it.”
Cranmer: “And let heaven witness how dear I hold this confirmation.”
King: “Good man, those joyful tears show thy true heart. Come, lords, we trifle time away; I long to have this young one made a Christian.”
Summary and Analysis
Various powerful lord assemble and admit Cranmer, who is being interrogated for apparently having new ideas considered by some to be heresies. They are harsh with him and proceed to condemn him to the Tower. Cromwell speaks up in defence of Cramner and Gardiner continues with the condemnations. As Cranmer is being led away he indicates that he is wearing the King’s ring. The King is watching these proceedings from a window above the gathering and is unimpressed He comes down and condemns the lords for being unjust with Cranmer, who he insists is a good and honest man. He insists they all embrace as friends and then declares that Cranmer, as Archbishop of Canterbury, will officiate the baptism of Princess Elizabeth and stand as her godfather. King Henry intervenes on behalf of Cranmer, after allowing the council to have their way with Buckingham, Katherine and Wolsey. Cranmer will not only baptize Elizabeth but will soon profoundly prophesize about her future role in the Kingdom.
Act V
Scene iv
The palace yard
Enter the porter and his man.
Porter: “You’ll leave your noise anon, you rascals. Do you take the court for a Paris garden? You rude slaves, leave your gaping. (from within: Good master Porter, I belong to the larder.) Belong to the gallows, and be hanged, you rogue! Is this a place to roar in? Do you look for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals?”
Man: “Pray, sir, be patient; tis as much impossible, unless we sweep them from the door with cannons.”
Porter: “How got they in?”
Man: “Alas, I know not: how gets the tide in?”
Porter: “You did nothing, sir.”
Man: “I am not Samson, to mow them down before me.”
Porter: “Keep the door closed, sirrah.”
Man: “What would you have me do?”
Porter: “What should you do, but knock them down by the dozens? On my Christian conscience, this one christening will beget a thousand. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse.”
Enter Lord Chamberlain
Chamberlain: “Mercy me, what a multitude are here! From all parts they are coming, as if we kept a fair here! Are all these your faithful friends of the suburbs?”
Porter: “We are but men; and what so many may do, we have done. An army cannot rule them.”
Chamberlain: “As I live, if the King blame me for it, I’ll lay you all by the heels and on your heads clap round fines for neglect. You are lazy knaves. Hark! The trumpets sound; they come already from the christening.”
Porter: “Make way there for the Princess.”
Summary and analysis
The porter and his man are trying to control the enormous crowds who have gathered to see the christening of Princess Elizabeth. It is a rowdy crowd, who have come from far and wide. The Lord Chamberlain arrives and scolds the porter for not having more control over the crowds, who behave as people do at the playhouses (a wink from the Bard). Once again, it is all about Elizabeth, as if all of England were somehow aware of how significant a role she will one day play in the kingdom.
Act V
Scene v
The palace
Enter Garter, Cranmer, Norfolk, Suffolk, aldermen, the mayor, nobles and ladies
Garter: “Heaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, long and ever happy, to the high and mighty Princess of England, Elizabeth!”
Enter the King
Cranmer: “To your royal Grace and the good Queen! All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady heaven ever laid up to make parents happy.”
King: “Thank you, good Lord Archbishop. What is her name?”
Cranmer: “Elizabeth.”
King: (he kisses the child) “With this kiss take my blessing; God protect thee, into whose hand I give thy life.”
Cranmer: “Amen.”
King: “My noble gossips, I thank you heartily. So shall this lady, when she has so much English.”
Cranmer: “Let me speak, sir, for heaven now bids me; and the words I utter let none think flattery, for they’ll find them truth. This royal infant, though in her cradle, yet now promises upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be – but few now living can behold that goodness – a pattern to all princes living with her, and all that shall succeed. All princely graces shall still be doubled on her. Truth shall nurse her, holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her; she shall be loved and feared. Good grows with her; in her days every man shall eat in safety under his own vine what he plants, and sing the merry songs of peace to all his neighbours. God shall be truly known; and those about her from her shall read the perfect ways of honour. Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when the bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, her ashes new create another heir as great in admiration as herself, so shall she leave her blessedness to one – when heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness – who from the sacred ashes of her honour shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was, and so stand fix’d. Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror, that were the servants to this chosen infant, shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him; wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, his 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; our children’s children shall see this and bless heaven.”
King: “Thou speaks wonders.”
Cranmer: “She shall be, to the happiness of England, an aged princess; many days shall see her, and yet no day without a deed to crown it. But she must die – the saints must have her – yet a virgin; and all the world shall mourn her.”
King: “O Lord Archbishop, thou has made me now a man; never before this happy child did I get anything. This oracle of comfort has so pleased me that when I am in heaven I shall desire to see what this child does, and praise my Maker. I thank you all. I am much beholding. Lead the way, lords; you must all see the Queen. This little one shall make it a holiday.”
Summary and Analysis
The final scene of the play is all about little Princess Elizabeth and it is here we see clearly why Cranmer had to survive the attack from the lords. He gives a most rousing speech about her future greatness and that of King James I, as well. Queen Elizabeth was already dead when Shakespeare wrote this play, but King James was on the throne and would have attended and heard these prophecies about himself, ‘an heir as great in admiration as herself, who from the sacred ashes of her honour shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was, and so stand fixed.’ King Henry is astonished by the prophetic praise to Elizabeth spoken by Cranmer. ‘Thou speaks wonders… Thou has made me now a man.’ He still may not have a son, but his two daughters will be future monarchs of England, and Elizabeth will be the greatest one of all his three children. King Henry will live for another 14 years as the English monarch. In that time he will have 4 more wives and will grow paranoid and tyrannical. Edward, his son from his third wife, Jane Seymour, will be King from 1447-1553. His daughter Mary, from his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, will reign from 1553-1558, and Elizabeth, from his second wife, Anne Bullen, will be the Queen for 45 years, from 1558-1603, an era known as Elizabethan England.
Epilogue
“Tis ten to one this play can never please all that are here. Some come to take their ease and sleep an act or two; but those, we fear, we have frighted with our trumpets; so, tis clear, they’ll say tis nought; I fear, all the expected good we are like to hear for this play at this time is only in the merciful construction of good women; for such a one we showed them. If they smile and say twill do, I know within a while all the best men are ours; for tis ill hap if they hold when their ladies bid them clap.”
Summary and Analysis
The figure (Shakespeare?) fears not everyone will have been pleased by the play. Some may have come to sleep and were awoken by trumpets. Good women may appreciate the play since they just witnessed one such as themselves. He could be referring to Queen Katherine, Queen Anne or Princess Elizabeth and he hopes that when they clap their men will follow.
Final Thoughts
King Henry VIII is often overlooked. Written around 1613, only three years before Shakespeare’s death in 1616, this play, along with Two Noble Kinsman, bring a close to the most illustrious career in the history of theatre. There were 24 years between Titus Andronicus, his first stage production, and this. In between came the greatest comedic, historic and tragic productions of all time. But it had been many years since Shakespeare had scored with a widely regarded theatrical masterpiece. We might say that his final flood of excellence was between 1604-1606 with Othello, Macbeth, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra, although Winter’s Tale (1610) and The Tempest (1611) would follow. Why has King Henry VIII been so slightly regarded? It was quite popular in Shakespeare’s day and again throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, as actors were attracted to such grand roles as Henry, Katherine and Wolsey. For some contemporary critics, the fact of its collaborative authorship devalues its status, even though some of its finest moments are firmly attributed to John Fletcher. The current consensus is that Shakespeare wrote I.i, I.ii, II.iii, II.iv, parts of III.ii and V.i. The character of King Henry is often criticized for not being sufficiently developed, as he is often more of an onlooker than an actual actor in the play. As well, the many grand pageantries, such as the masque at York Place (act I), the trial of Katherine at Blackfriars (act II), Anne’s coronation procession (act IV) and the christening of princess Elizabeth (act V) may be difficult to stage for moderate to smaller theatre companies. The Globe itself burned down in an attempt to stage all of these elaborate set pieces. Perhaps the fact that the play only covers a very brief period in Henry’s long and illustrious reign is seen as lacking in perspective. Or it could be that while 8 of Shakespeare’s 10 history plays are one continuous and inter-connected story, from Richard II right up to Richard III, both King John and King Henry VIII are stand alone efforts and are the very two that often get missed. Nonetheless, Henry VIII is a most fascinating play in its own right, even if it is hard to find a staged production. The language is excellent, as are the various superb speeches of regret, defiance and farewell on the part of the fallen characters. The demise of Buckingham, Katherine and Wolsey all clear the deck and pave the way for the real stars of the play, Princess Elizabeth and her successor and heir, James I, Shakespeare’s monarchs, who first watched this play to his own honour at Whitehall, his residence, which was in King Henry VIII’s time, York Palace, the scene of the masque from Act I. Shakespeare returned to Stratford upon Avon soon after the Globe Theatre burned down during a production of this play and never returned to London to write or perform again. He would collaborate one final time with John Fletcher for Two Noble Kinsmen before departing.
Shakespeare wrote Henry VIII with the assistance of Holinshed’s Chronicles. The play was very popular from 1613 onwards for its spectacular sets, casts of hundreds of extras, pyrotechnics, real horses, coaches and lavish costumes. Many famous productions were recorded at Drury lane and Covent gardens throughout both the 18th and 19th centuries and in Stratford upon Avon and the Old Vic in the early 20th century. Since then the play has not been regularly staged. On Youtube there is a 2021 zoom production by Plaguespeare and Company which is quite good. Other than that there is not very much available.
William Shakespeare: Journey Through Genius 