THE LIFE OF HENRY THE EIGHTH

A PLAY called Henry VIII or All is True was being played in the Globe Theatre on June 29, 1613, when the theatre caught fire and was burned down. Contemporary descriptions of this piece fit the present history so exactly that there remains little doubt that the Shakespearean drama is meant. We have here, then, a later limit for its composition. Wotton, writing of the burning of the Globe, calls All is True" a new play." The chief reason urged against taking this literally lies in the reference to Elizabeth in II. ii. 50-52, and in the eulogy in v. v. 18–39, 58–63, to which the praise of James may have been added later. But eulogies of the great queen did not cease with her death; and there is much in the treatment of her parents that could hardly have been pleasing to her. In the style and metre of the undoubted Shakespearean part of the drama we find nothing pointing to a date before 1603, but much to the latest years of his activity; and it is a fairly safe conclusion that in the parts of the present play written by him we have the last of his extant work.

No edition of Henry VIII appeared till it was published in the First Folio, and on that version the present text is based.

The chief historical basis for the play is Holinshed's Chronicles. Some details seem to have come direct from Halle; and the scenes presenting the attempt to crush Cranmer (v. i., ii., iii.) are taken from Foxe's Actes and Monuments, better known as The Book of Martyrs. These sources are followed at times almost slavishly, much of the actual diction being derived from the prose narratives. Yet with all this borrowing of detail, much freedom is used in the selection and arrangement of incident, historical time is disregarded, and even the identity of personages is confused.

The characterization of Queen Katherine alone shows any great creative imagination. Though all her acts and much of her language are taken from the Chronicles, the dramatist has bestowed on her a pathetic dignity which elevates her to such a pitch that in spite of her passive rôle she stands out as the real heroine of the play. Wolsey's farewell speech (except III. ii. 455–457) is also invented; but his other important utterances and almost all his actions are based directly on Holinshed, who here drew from a variety of sources varying much in their estimate of the Cardinal. Some details seem to have been suggested by Samuel Rowley's When You See Me You Know Me (printed 1605). The low comedy scenes in the palace yard and Cranmer's closing prophecies are, of course, without historical basis.

This drama is singularly lacking in unity. The material is simply translated into dialogue or pageant; and there results a succession of brilliant stage pictures, sketches of character, and fine speeches, entirely without dramatic coherence. Buckingham, Katherine, the King, Wolsey, and Cranmer hold in succession the centre of the stage, but no causal connection is apparent in the sequence; nor is there consistency in the demand for sympathy with men or factions. This fragmentary quality alone is sufficient to suggest a doubt as to unity of authorship; and examination of the technical qualities of style and metre has confirmed this suspicion. It is now fairly generally, though not universally, conceded that the greater number of scenes are to be credited to John Fletcher, and to Shakespeare only 1. i., ii.; II. iii., iv.; m. ii. 1-203; and with less assurance of purity, v. i.

Attempts have been made to deny to Shakespeare any share in the authorship, and to assign it to other authors, especially to Massinger. But various internal reasons, besides the unchallenged appearance of the play in the First Folio, prevent the acceptance of this extreme view. No speculation on the method of collaboration has resulted in anything more than mere conjecture.

The pronunciation of Abergavenny" is indicated by the spelling found in the Folio, “Aburgany."