SOURCE: Kurland, Stuart M. “Henry VIII and James I: Shakespeare and Jacobean Politics.” Shakespeare Studies 19 (1987): 203-17.

[In the following essay, Kurland traces affinities between King Henry of Shakespeare's Henry VIII and the historical King James I of England, the reigning monarch at the time of the drama's premiere.]

The allusion to James I in Cranmer's prophecy in the last scene of Henry VIII is unmistakable. Cranmer foresees an ideal reign not only for the “royal infant” Elizabeth but for her successor,¹

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.

(V.iv.45-55)

The play's commentators have explained both the appropriateness of the prophecy and the function of its flattery variously.² Perhaps the most convincing analysis is that of Lee Bliss, who calls attention to “the didactic function of panegyric in the Renaissance: idealized portraits which heighten the subject's exemplary traits in order to incite emulation.” For the Globe audience, which has experienced James I's flawed reign, Cranmer's ideal offers a “glimpse of what a transformed England, under an inspired monarch, might be.”³

In the prophecy, James is identified with an ideal of government, of sovereignty virtuously exercised. Yet this should not be viewed in isolation: Throughout the play James's situation and attitudes are reflected in those of the flawed King Henry. Both the cautionary tale of Henry's misgovernment and the ideal order envisioned by Cranmer had relevance for a Jacobean audience.

A dominant characteristic of the political world of Henry VIII is its factionalism, which was also a significant feature of the court of James I. Although factional competition characterized court life at other times, including the last decade of Elizabeth's reign, under James the struggles between rival groups of courtiers were especially intense. This factionalism increased significantly after the deaths of the Earl of Salisbury and Prince Henry, which removed important restraining forces in the year before the first recorded performance of Henry VIII.

The play makes significant alterations to its sources to heighten the interplay of factions and the political interests of the characters. The faintest political suggestions are developed, and substantial fictional material is added. The play has traditionally been seen as following its sources closely,⁴ but Shakespeare “took unusual liberties with his source,” as Howard Felperin observes: His “working principle is to rearrange events freely, not … simply to telescope them” (p. 227; p. 227 n. 5). According to Frank V. Cespedes's detailed study of earlier treatments of Henry's reign, the play “departs notably and consistently from its sources”; it is a turning point in the interpretation of Henry's reign, “more critical, even cynical, about the historical character and meaning of Henry VIII, than previous criticism has allowed.”⁵

Significantly, many of the seeming romance elements in the play were already in its sources, often presented in considerable detail: the pageantry and spectacle (including Wolsey's banquet, which the play adapts for Henry and Anne Bullen's first encounter), the transformation of Buckingham after his treason conviction to accept his fate and forgive his enemies, the generous assessment of Wolsey (which leads Katherine to forgive her old enemy), and the salvation of the virtuous Cranmer (see Bullough, IV, 462, 477-89).

Even more significant are the play's elaborations and fictitious additions, which are for the most part realistic and political. Buckingham's noble factionaries, and their antagonism to Wolsey and his supporters, are essentially the dramatist's creation.⁶ The political discussions Anne has with the worldly Old Lady, who has been “begging sixteen years in court” and is “yet a courtier beggarly” (II.iii.82-83), are without foundation in the sources, as are the comments of the walking gentlemen that help put political characters and events in perspective.

Throughout Henry VIII, the characters' interest in politics is focused on the rivalries at court. The play opens on the preoccupations of the Duke of Buckingham and his fellow nobles with the great Cardinal Wolsey, whose enmity seems to threaten not only them but nobility itself. Wolsey's position as the most powerful of Henry's subjects seems unassailable, but he too is a courtier, dependent on royal favor for his power and wealth. He maintains his position by adroitly flattering and deceiving the King, by rewarding and advancing powerful associates, and by opposing the interests of rivals. When he falls from favor and reconsiders the ways of court, Wolsey concludes that the “sea of glory” that had buoyed him up has become “a rude stream” that will “for ever hide” him. He becomes convinced of the wretchedness of “that poor man that hangs on princes' favours” (III.ii.358-67).

Henry is the ultimate force at his court. Just as the “princely graces” of Elizabeth determine the ideal world Cranmer prophesies (V.iv.25), Henry defines the real political world the play depicts, whose insecurity makes Anne fearful “To think what follows” her rise in the royal favor (II.iii.104). Great figures rise and fall according to Henry's desires: Buckingham is left to the law and the surveyor's dubious accusations, while Cranmer is protected; Anne has her beauty and honor rewarded, while Katherine, despite her virtues, is divorced and disgraced; and Wolsey, unable to secure Henry's divorce, falls “Like a bright exhalation in the evening” (III.ii.226).

The misgovernment evident in Henry VIII results from the King's inattention to state concerns, coupled with a tendency, when he does exert himself, to think first of his own interests. In these characteristics, Henry bears a striking resemblance to James I.⁷ This resemblance is suggested by Henry's initial entry “leaning on the CARDINAL'S shoulder” (I.ii OSD). The gesture signals Henry's dependence on Wolsey while also suggesting James's habit, reported by various sources, of leaning on his courtiers' shoulders.⁸ Joseph Hunter, arguing in the nineteenth century for a Jacobean date for the play, believed Shakespeare “designed to direct the thoughts of his audience to King James,” because leaning on his attendants “was a practice of King James, (as it had been of King Henry the Eighth,) …”⁹ though Hunter does not explain why the playwright might have had such a design. Karl Elze agreed that this was James's practice, but doubted whether the gesture was evidence for a Jacobean date, “for such an allusion would scarcely have been agreeable to James.”¹⁰ Whether James would have found an allusion to himself objectionable in a 1613 treatment of Henry cannot be known, and would, at any rate, be of more interest to earlier historical critics than to us.¹¹ Rather than ask whether the King recognized himself and felt flattered (or offended), we should ask how the allusion functions in the drama.

An identification of Henry with James could only have been partial, indeed, quite limited. The Henry of the play is clearly the sixteenth-century monarch, Elizabeth I's father, and a simplistic equation of him and James would make little dramatic sense. But Henry may remind us of James without being James. And such a partial identification would be consistent with the general correspondences that can be seen between the factious world of the play and the Jacobean court. The Prologue hints that the characters may seem contemporary, urging the audience to imagine

The very persons of our noble story
As they were living,

(ll. 26-27)

and Renaissance audiences tended to look for moral and political lessons that could be applied to current situations.¹² Thus the partial identification suggested by Henry's gesture may have reinforced the history's contemporary relevance for an audience already predisposed to think in such terms and prompted to do so not only by the Prologue but by the contemporaneous display, in the first scene, of the nobles' preoccupation with faction and “difference” (I.i.139).

Like both the historical Henry VIII and Shakespeare's character, James I tended to neglect the details of government, leaving the tedium of daily business to his ministers. Because of James's “marked laziness in conducting routine business” and his “passion for hunting,” from the beginning of the reign “his ministers complained of the difficulty of getting affairs dispatched.”¹³ Soon after the accession, James's habits were said to be distressing his new subjects; as Venetian Ambassador Nicolo Molin reported,¹⁴

papers have been found fixed up in various places; they contained attacks upon the King, … accus[ing] the King of attending to nothing but his pleasures, especially to the chase, and of leaving all government entirely in the hands of his ministers, as though he had come to the throne for nothing else than to go a-hunting; warning him, too, that unless he changes he will bring himself and the kingdom as well down to the ground.

According to a subsequent report,¹⁵ James's delegation of authority caused

indescribable ill-humour among the King's subjects, who in their needs and troubles find themselves cut off from their natural sovereign, and forced to go before Council, which is full of rivalry and discord, and frequently is guided more by personal interest than by justice and duty.

As the Ambassador observed, the ultimate cause of the Council's factiousness and bias, and of the subjects' “ill-humour,” was the King's neglect.

Responsibility for the realm was ultimately the monarch's, and James set the standard—for better or worse—that his ministers and courtiers followed. His laxity, for example in dispensing honors casually and overlooking the influence peddling and corruption that secured nominations, gave his servants considerable opportunity to serve themselves before the state. Conscientious oversight might have curbed these excesses, as is suggested by Prince Henry's success in thwarting individuals he felt unworthy of becoming Knights of the Bath, for which he “acquired a great reputation.”¹⁶

The historical Henry VIII was like James in his distaste for administration, at least at the beginning of his reign. According to Peter Saccio,¹⁷

… Henry's attention to business was sporadic. … He never retreated altogether from public business—his was always the final decisive voice in England—but the daily work and most of the real shaping of policy he left to others.

Much of Wolsey's authority resulted from his eagerness to take on state concerns Henry was happy to avoid.¹⁸

In the play, Henry allows Wolsey a free hand with both policy and routine detail. Wolsey works indefatigably, arranging the diplomatic shows in France (I.i.6-12), raising funds for the wars that ultimately result (I.ii.59-60), discovering Buckingham's alleged treasons (I.ii.1-4), and attempting to settle Henry's marital problems (II.ii.85-112). Whether England's interests are as well served by Wolsey's industry is another matter: The nobility and commons suffer, England's foreign policy is fruitless and costly, and great figures like Buckingham and Katherine are destroyed.

Although the nobles' initial descriptions suggest that Wolsey's hegemony is absolute, and although Henry appears unaware of his minister's nature and activities, I would argue that Wolsey acts only with the allowance of his master, who appears disinclined to become involved in the detailed labors of government but can act when he chooses.

Henry's apparent ignorance about affairs of state is striking. According to the nobles, he is unaware of Wolsey's choices for attendants in France and of how his selections harm the old nobility (I.i.72-85): While Wolsey has the freedom to fashion “all men's honours” as he pleases, the nobles can only pray that “Heaven will one day open / The king's eyes” (II.ii.47, 41-42). Nor is Henry aware of the fate of his lesser subjects, the cloth workers who are driven by starvation, induced by Wolsey's exactions, to revolt (I.ii.37-40, 52-54).

The question of how much Henry really knows is complex, however. Can a ruler who is anything more than a figurehead be totally ignorant of a tax “which compels from each / The sixth part of his substance, to be levied / Without delay,” particularly when the “pretence for this” is his own wars (I.ii.57-60)? Henry's authoritativeness in declaring his displeasure, rescinding the tax, and pardoning the rioters confirms that he is no figurehead. And the juxtaposition of his protestations of ignorance with Wolsey's incredible disclaimers of responsibility (I.ii.37-71) suggests that he is both less innocent than he claims and less candid than he might wish to appear.¹⁹

Shakespeare had historic warrant for this treatment. Holinshed, on which the scene is based, indicates that the King, who was “determined … to make wars in France,” upon learning of uprisings caused by excessive taxation to support them “willed to know by whose meanes the commissions were so streictlie given foorth, to demand the sixt part of everie mans goods” (Holinshed, 891; rpt. Bullough, 4, 464, 465). J. J. Scarisbrick's modern account, based largely on Hall (who was a source for Holinshed), could almost be a gloss of the scene in the play:²⁰

It is incredible that [Henry] should have been entirely ignorant of [the Amicable Grant], though he may not have known the rate. Probably, as Wolsey said, the plan was originally devised by the Council independently of the king and without his knowing the full details. We need not accept Wolsey's subsequent claim that he (Wolsey) never assented to it. This was surely as disingenuous as Henry's claim to complete ignorance.

The overall impression is that Wolsey manages the business of government as he sees fit, with Henry's allowance, so that the aggrieved subjects appear correct in holding them jointly responsible (I.ii.22-29, 39-40).

The impression that Henry is more aware of the politics of his court than he allows is reinforced in other scenes, notably the trials of Buckingham and Cranmer. Henry permits Buckingham to fall, leaving him (in an alteration of the source) to “Find mercy in the law” (I.ii.212), although he intervenes to protect Cranmer in similar circumstances.²¹ With Cranmer, Henry reveals an awareness he had not acknowledged earlier of the possibility of injustice, lecturing Cranmer on the “practices” of enemies and the uncertainty of “justice and the truth o'th'question” (V.i.128-30) in terms that clearly seem to refer to Wolsey's alleged procurement of the surveyor's testimony against Buckingham (I.i.222-23):

                                                                                at what ease
Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt
To swear against you? such things have been done.

(V.i.131-33)

The threat Buckingham poses to the King and the Crown may well justify his fall, while Cranmer may deserve the King's protection. Significantly, regardless of Wolsey's opposition Buckingham could not have fallen without Henry's acquiescence.

When Henry involves himself in political affairs, his concerns tend to be personal. Turning against Wolsey, Henry focuses on his disloyalty and ingratitude rather than the state concerns that trouble others (III.ii.107-90). Similarly, in the divorce Henry stresses personal considerations even over the “business of estate” with which the nobles interrupt his musings (II.ii.69). Explaining his “conscience” at the trial, Henry says he was moved first by thoughts that he “stood not in the smile of heaven” and would be unable to leave his kingdom a male heir; only then does he begin to focus on the larger implications for the state: “the danger which my realms stood in / By this my issue's fail” (II.iv.185-96).

It is not amiss, certainly, for a ruler to identify personal concerns with the national interest in a matter like the succession, which may even justify seemingly unjustifiable events like the ruin of Buckingham and the divorce from Katherine. In other situations, too, as when Henry insists on noble values of loyalty and respect in confronting Wolsey and, later, the Council, Henry's identification of himself with the state can be constructive. More often than not, however, Henry's neglect of everyday government and excessive concern with himself result in the realm as a whole being harmed. This can be seen most clearly in the vast power Wolsey is allowed to exercise, without meaningful constraints placed upon him, and in the destructive competition—and ignoble conduct—of the court and Council. As King James's subjects believed, according to the Ambassador's analysis of their “ill-humour,” good government depended on the diligent exercise of royal authority.

A critical issue under James I, ultimately related to the larger question of the sovereign's role in government, was the relationship between the royal authority and the laws of the realm. How much license did the royal prerogative allow the King and his ministers? In Henry VIII, too, law and justice are important elements of the question of good government. Although many critics have commented on the succession of trials, the theme of justice, and the pervasiveness of legal concepts,²² the echoes of the Jacobean debate over the prerogative have for the most part been overlooked.

King James's views on the supremacy of an absolute monarch, as D. Harris Willson observes, clashed with his English subjects' conception of their legal rights and their ancient role in parliamentary government. In the first Parliament of the reign, James's assertion of the right to oversee disputed parliamentary elections led to a conflict with the House of Commons over the extent of his prerogative. Soon, a series of jurisdictional disputes broke out between common law and ecclesiastical courts—the issue of prohibitions—which raised the difficult questions of who should interpret the law and of whether the King was above the law or the law above the King. James felt that the independence of common law judges was incompatible with his prerogative; he believed, as Willson writes,²³ that

Kings made the law; and a king, having made the law, could unmake it or alter it at his pleasure. A law was an expression of the king's will. Hence the king was the supreme interpreter of the law, the great judge from whom inferior judges drew their authority and competence.

In contrast, James's opponents in Parliament saw the common law as more than a legal system: it “embodied and preserved the ancient rights and liberties of the English people”; it was “the foundation of their political freedom.”²⁴

Although James insisted on his fealty to the laws (which, he said, “are properly made by the King onely”²⁵), he often acted as if he considered himself above the law. In 1612, having failed to establish by Act of Parliament extradition on the Scottish borders, he sought to do so by prerogative. According to Willson,

Salisbury pointed out that such action would be illegal. Of that, James answered tartly, he was fully aware, “but the necessity of his service required it.” His use of high prerogative, he added, might be questioned when employed in a noisome or oppressive design, but not when his object was the welfare of his people.

(p. 256)

James tended to see the law, as he saw other matters of government, in terms of his own interests.²⁶

Similarly, in the play a significant feature of Henry's approach to government is his subordination of the law to his own desires. As we have observed, Buckingham is left to the law while Cranmer is protected from it by the King's intercession in the Council. When Wolsey falls, he is presented with apparently trumped-up charges, most of them extremely technical and specific ones introduced for the first time, which reinforces the impression that Henry selectively countenances activities of questionable legality.

The uncertainty of justice in the play thus stems from the selectivity with which laws can be enforced, the possibility of malice, and, crucially, the personal interests of the King himself. Because of Wolsey's bias, Katherine rejects him as her judge (II.iv.73-82), and she proves unwilling to trust her cause to the King “that hates” her (III.i.118). Indeed, she rejects the idea that anyone in England could counsel her

Or be a known friend 'gainst his highness' pleasure
(Though he be grown so desperate to be honest)
And live a subject.

(III.i.85-87)²⁷

Others also come to recognize Henry's responsibility: The nobles jest about his “conscience” (II.ii.16), and even Anne implicitly blames him when she declares, “To give her the avaunt, it is a pity / Would move a monster!” (II.iii.10-11).

Public proceedings allow Henry to achieve his ends while disguising his interest. After Henry's private determination that Buckingham is guilty, he is called to a state trial before the peers, with all the legal apparatus: “examinations, proofs, confessions / Of divers witnesses,” who confront him “viva voce” (II.i.15-18). The elaborate investigation of Henry's marriage “scruple” involves overtures to “the voice of Christendom” throughout Europe and an appeal to Rome, resulting in a special legation to hear the matter before the assembled Bishops and Lords of England (II.ii.85-97, II.iv.OSD). Such formalities protect Henry, as Wolsey acknowledges when he asks,

Who can be angry now? what envy reach you?
The Spaniard tied by blood and favour to her,
Must now confess, if they have any goodness,
The trial just and noble.

(II.ii.88-91)

Just as Henry took care to involve his advisors when he first began to doubt his marriage (II.iv.215-20), thus avoiding the appearance of advocacy, he submerges his personal interest in the official inquiry; meanwhile, he simultaneously ensures the end he desires through Cranmer's secret mission abroad.²⁸

Even in the ostensibly independent public trial at the Blackfriars, Henry's interest and ultimate authority are evident.²⁹ He sits under a cloth of state above the papal legates who are supposed to judge his marriage (II.iv. OSD), and he established control over the proceedings even before they can be formally opened, interrupting Wolsey—the presiding judge—to dispense with the necessity of reading the court's commission (II.iv.1-5). Recognizing Henry's primacy, Katherine makes her appeal directly to him, ignoring Wolsey as if he and the entire Blackfriars court were extraneous. Although Henry ignores her appeal, when she walks out of the court it is he who commands that she be called back (II.iv.123).

Henry's concern with maintaining public appearances while ensuring that his own will shall prevail is evident too in the trial of Cranmer. After acquiescing in the Council's plan to investigate despite his own feelings about his minister, Henry reserves the decision for himself—without the Council's knowledge—with the ring he gives Cranmer as a token. He thus renders the Council's deliberations meaningless, but by seeming to go along he wins political goodwill, as we see when Gardiner reports that he has

Given ear to our complaint, of his great grace
And princely care foreseeing those fell mischiefs
Our reasons laid before him. …

(V.i.48-50)

As it happens, Henry's intervention disrupts the Council's consideration of the “fell mischiefs” Gardiner was given to believe he cared about, and the issues raised by Cranmer's alleged “heresies”—the danger of “Commotions, uproars, with a general taint / Of the whole state” as experienced in Germany (V.ii.62-65)—go unheeded. The following scene hints at the possible consequences of royal inattention to the public interest: The boisterous popular celebration of Elizabeth's christening threatens to become anarchic.

Henry's unhistorical involvement in the interrogation of Buckingham's surveyor suggests James's well-known interest in hearing disputes.³⁰ Of greater significance, Henry's response to Katherine's pleas for the rebellious cloth workers in this scene raises the important and complex Jacobean issue of policy based on precedent. According to Holinshed,³¹ Henry “openlie protested, that his mind was never to aske anie thing of his commons which might sound to the breach of his lawes. …” When he asked who was responsible for the commissions, Wolsey responded that “the kings councell, and namelie the judges, said, that he might lawfullie demand anie summe by commission. …” The play embellishes significantly upon this account, notably in Henry's double insistence on the importance of governing according to precedent. Addressing Wolsey, he declares:

                                                  Things done well
And with a care exempt themselves from fear;
Things done without example, in their issue
Are to be fear'd. Have you a precedent
Of this commission? I believe, not any.
We must not rend our subjects from our laws
And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each?
A trembling contribution.

(I.ii.88-95)

On the surface, Henry's concern with governing “with a care” and according to law—exalted here over the royal “will”—seems an exception to what I have suggested is his attitude throughout the play. Several factors argue against such a view, however. The sincerity and force of Henry's exhortation are undercut by its context, his dubious protestations of ignorance and his ineffectual remand of the matter to Wolsey. It is significant, too, that Henry's precepts are not put into effect elsewhere in the play, as we see from his inattention to state matters and the ad hoc trial of the divorce. Indeed, Henry criticizes in Wolsey's government what he consistently does himself. In this, we might note, Henry resembles King James, who was unable to live up to the precepts he offered Prince Henry in the widely promulgated Basilikon Doron.³²

Moreover, although the general principle of law according to precedent was dear to the English, the very core of the common law, much depended on the precedents adduced and how they were interpreted. Bishop Goodman praised James's favorite, Rochester, for employing Sir Robert Cotton, the antiquary, to search for precedents “when as things were to be done in the State which he doubted whether they were lawful and expedient, and therefore did desire to have the example of former times for his warrant.” Cotton's role was more dubious, however, when the new order of baronets was created in 1611: He provided arguments from antiquity to disguise the innovation and, when protocol became a matter of dispute before the King and Council, gathered examples to support the claims of one side.³³ According to Fulke Greville, James misused precedents in an effort to extend his prerogative: Criticizing the King implicitly in his Life of Sidney,³⁴ Greville praised Elizabeth, who did not

by any curious search after Evidence to enlarge her Prerogative Royall, teach her subjects in Parliament, by the like self-affections, to make as curious inquisition among their Records, to colour any encroaching upon the sacred Circles of Monarchy.

Even if Wolsey had a legitimate precedent for the tax, and he claims to have had the “approbation of the judges,” sound precedents or legal opinions would not in themselves make such a tax sound policy: A sixth part would still be a “trembling contribution.” It is “hunger” and “lack of … means” rather than any abstract legal issue that “compell'd” the unemployed workers to riot (I.ii.34-36). Henry's emphasis on the legal question, while commendable in theory, misses the real issue of government here: His earlier neglect of policy and administration, whose continuation appears likely when Wolsey is able to manipulate the pardon for his own ends in front of Henry by starting a rumor about his responsibility for this turn of events (I.i.102-07).

It is clear that Henry VIII does not portray a monarch who excites admiration or inspires emulation. Despite the occasional fine sentiments Henry professes—about the importance of governing according to law and precedent, and of respect for honors and those that possess them—he consistently exalts personal over state concerns while neglecting the serious business of government. Henry's attitude toward kingship and government, as we have observed, resembles that of King James. His initial appearance on stage leaning on Wolsey's shoulder hints at the resemblance, not, as earlier critics thought, to compliment (or risk offending) the King, but to reinforce the contemporary applicability of the issues the play explores: the factiousness and uncertainty of political life. Cranmer's prophecy, introducing James overtly, encourages emulation of the ideal Elizabeth represents, a political ideal that complements the realistic explorations of important contemporary issues elsewhere in the play.

Notes

1. Some of the play's detractors dismiss the final scene as irrelevant to the action of the rest of the play, and it is among the scenes that those who argue for Fletcher's hand in the play ascribe to him; see R. A. Foakes, ed., Henry VIII, New Arden (London: Methuen, 1957; rpt., rev., 1964), pp. xviii, xxvii (quotations throughout are taken from this edition).

   This paper was prepared initially for the session “Interpreting Shakespeare Topically,” chaired by Howard C. Cole, at the 1984 Midwest Modern Language Association meeting; I would like to thank Robert C. Evans, who responded to it, George Bahlke, and David Kastan for their comments.

2. Some critics see the prophecy as a fitting culmination, one that crowns the reconciliation in the Council and “the general atmosphere of peace and forgiveness,” that affirms the play's purported “providential design,” or that completes the supposed masque-like (though qualified) “celebration of Jacobean kingship” in “James's apotheosis”; see Foakes, p. lii; Howard Felperin, “Shakespeare's Henry VIII: History as Myth,” Studies in English Literature, 6 (1966), 242; John D. Cox, “Henry VIII and the Masque,” ELH, 45 (1978), 395, 397.

3. Lee Bliss, “The Wheel of Fortune and the Maiden Phoenix of Shakespeare's King Henry the Eighth,” ELH, 42 (1975), 20-23.

4. J. C. Maxwell considers that in its use of the chronicle material it is “one of the least complex of Shakespeare's history plays” (J. C. Maxwell, ed., Henry VIII, New Cambridge [Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1962], p. xxx). Geoffrey Bullough notes that the Chronicles “were followed very closely in some parts of the play” (Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, 4 [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962], 443).

5. Frank V. Cespedes, “Pespectives on Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey in the English Renaissance,” Diss. Cornell, 1977, p. 7; see pp. 394-401.

6. In the relevant passages of Holinshed, there is no such group of nobles bound together by a common interest in preserving their position. There is a hint of Buckingham's faction in the “freends, kinnesmen, and alies” who might aid him, especially his son-in-law, Surrey, whom Wolsey sends out of the way; Norfolk and Suffolk are not Buckingham's allies but his judges (Holinshed, pp. 855, 864-65; rpt. Bullough, 4, 455-56, 461-62).

7. According to William M. Baillie, “In several respects which are immediately apparent Henry in the play resembles James as he was perceived by his subjects: both revel in splendor and extravagance, both are notably autocratic and manipulative while insisting upon the forms of law, both are theologically inclined and make important gestures toward championing anti-papal forces”; Baillie argues that there are “unmistakable ways in which the play's depiction of the court of Henry VIII mirrors the contemporary court of James I in 1613”; see “Henry VIII: A Jacobean History,” Shakespeare Studies, 12 (1979), 248.

8. See, for example, Sir Anthony Weldon, “The Character of King James I,” in Robert Ashton, ed., James I by His Contemporaries (London: Hutchinson, 1969), p. 12.

9. Joseph Hunter, New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare (London, 1845), 2, 102-3. According to Hunter, Manningham recorded a report that “‘the King useth in walking among his nobles oftentimes to lean upon their shoulders as a special favour, and in disgrace to neglect some in that kindness’” (p. 103).

10. Elze believed the play to be Elizabethan, though not staged until later, when the prophecy's lines on James were supposedly interpolated; see Karl Elze, “King Henry VIII,” in Essays on Shakespeare, tr. L. Dora Schmitz (London, 1874), pp. 160, 164, 184-85.

11. On such “lock-picking” topical identifications, see David Bevington, Tudor Drama and Politics: A Critical Approach to Topical Meaning (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968), pp. 11-25.

12. Baillie observes that “as they were living” can mean “‘as if these characters were contemporary persons’” (p. 257); see Bevington, p. 6.

13. Menna Prestwich, Cranfield: Politics and Profits Under the Early Stuarts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966), p. 11.

14. Nicolo Molin to the Doge and Senate, 1 Dec. 1604 (n.s.), in Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1603-1607 (London, 1900), p. 195.

15. Molin dispatch, 10 Feb. 1605 (n.s.), in CSP, Ven., 1603-1607, pp. 218-19.

16. Marc' Antonio Correr to the Doge and Senate, 23 June 1610 (n.s.), in Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1607-1610 (London, 1904), p. 516.

17. Peter Saccio, Shakespeare's English Kings: History, Chronicle, and Drama (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1977), p. 213.

18. According to Holinshed, “The king committed all his will unto his [Wolsey's] disposition, which the almoner perceiving, tooke upon him therefore to discharge the king of the weightie and troublesome businesse, persuading the king that he should not need to spare anie time of his pleasure for anie businesse that should happen in the councell.

    “And whereas the other councellors would diverse times persuade the king to have sometime recourse into the councell chamber, there to heare what was doone; the almoner would persuade him to the contrarie, which delited him much: and thus the almoner ruled all them that were before him. …” See Raphael Holinshed, comp., The Third Volume of Chronicles, 2d ed. (London, 1587), p. 919.

    Despite its apparent influence on Shakespeare's characterization, this passage is not among the excerpts printed by Foakes or Bullough.

19. Wolsey certainly bears more responsibility than he allows: Katherine is quite specific in stating that he is said to have devised the exactions, and he appears to have been involved in every aspect of government, from shaping foreign policy to finding and interviewing witnesses against Buckingham.

20. J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1968), p. 139.

21. The play alters its source, as Cespedes points out, to heighten the King's responsibility: According to Holinshed, Henry commanded that Buckingham should “have his lawes ministered with favour and right,” but in the play Henry leaves Buckingham to “find mercy in the law” if he can (pp. 423-24).

22. Foakes, pp. xlvi, l-liv; as Baillie writes, “The play is intensively concerned with justice, especially with defining the King's role in various sorts of judicial inquiry and action. Four scenes exhibit King Henry as prosecutor or judge in quasi-legal hearings, in a formal trial, or simply in conversation” (p. 254).

23. See D. Harris Willson, King James VI and I (London: Jonathan Cape, 1956), pp. 247-60; esp. p. 257.

24. Brian P. Levack, The Civil Lawyers in England, 1603-1641: A Political Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), p. 122.

25. James declared that “every just King in a setled Kingdome is bound to observe that paction made to his people by his Lawes, in framing his government agreeable thereunto …”; Speech to Lords and Commons, 21 Mar. [1610], in The Political Works of James I, ed. Charles Howard McIlwain (1918; rpt. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), p. 309.

26. For example, James's main arguments for unification were that it “would augment the grandeur and strength of his estate, it would solidify the allegiance owed by his subjects to him and to his posterity for ever, it would increase his fame and reputation throughout the world. Only as an afterthought did he consider the benefits—the strength, peace, and security—that would accrue to his people.” In foreign policy, similarly, James sought friendship and peace with the Catholic powers with which Elizabeth had been at war, but this “was a personal policy, not shared or understood by his people, to whom he gave no explanation of what he was trying to do” (Willson, pp. 250, 273).

27. As Bliss observes, “Katherine no longer blames Wolsey for her fate; on the contrary, Henry's ultimate responsibility is now assumed: ‘Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge / That no king can corrupt’ (III.i.100-01)” (p. 11).

28. Henry seems willing to obtain the divorce by whatever means are necessary, even if that means undermining the formal proceedings that have been arranged with such care and upon whose favorable outcome he would appear to be committed. That he resorts to an alternative plan, even before the Cardinals' failure to secure the divorce is certain, reinforces the impression that the trial is for him primarily a means to a predetermined end. Since there were no adequate legal means to effect the divorce, other measures are found in the commission from Rome for the Cardinals' authority (though Wolsey will soon be charged under a writ of praemunire), and, even before that fails, the extra-legal expedient of Cranmer's mission abroad to survey the opinions of “all famous colleges / Almost in Christendom” (III.ii.64-67; cf. II.ii.85-97).

29. See Baillie, p. 254.

30. Bishop Godfrey Goodman reported that James, whose interest was not confined to important matters of state, “was ever apt to search into secrets, to try conclusions, as I did know some who saw him run to see one in a fit whom they said was bewitched” (The Court of King James the First, ed. John S. Brewer [London, 1839], I, 3).

    According to Holinshed, in examination before Wolsey the surveyor “disclosed all the dukes life”; then Wolsey “went unto the king, and declared unto him, that his person was in danger by such traitorous purpose, as the duke of Buckingham had conceived in his heart … wherefore, he exhorted the king to provide for his owne suertie with speed. The king hearing the accusation, inforced to the uttermost by the cardinall, made this answer; If the duke have deserved to be punished, let him have according to his deserts.” The King's “hearing the accusation” may have suggested the play's scene of Henry interrogating the surveyor in person, but a marginal note in Holinshed, “The Cardinall accuseth the duke of Buckingham to the king,” indicates that it was Wolsey's accusation the King heard (Holinshed, p. [863]; rpt. Bullough, 4, 458-59).

31. See pp. 891-92: Henry “openlie protested, that his mind was never to aske anie thing of his commons which might sound to the breach of his lawes, wherefore he willed to know by whose means the commissions were so streictlie given foorth, to demand the sixt part of everie mans goods.”

    Although Shakespeare embellishes upon Henry's concern about “the breach of his lawes,” neither Foakes nor Bullough prints the passage in full.

32. Observing the English unhappiness with James's hunting and sloth in 1603, the Venetian Ambassador called attention to this disparity: “in spite of all the heroic virtues … inculcated by him in his books,” James sank into “a lethargy of pleasures” (Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli to the Doge and Senate, 4 Sept. 1603 [n.s.], in CSP, Ven., 1603-1607, p. 90). According to Godfrey Davies, “Much of the advice [in the Basilikon Doron] is admirable, and James's failure to attain the high standard he prescribed for his son is not surprising. What is astonishing is the complete contradiction between precept and example in matters on which great stress is laid, such as diligence in performing the office of a king or the careful selection of courtiers from among the old nobility” (“The Character of James VI and I,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 5 [1941], 43).

33. Goodman, I, 215; Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), pp. 86-89; see Katherine S. Van Eerde, “The Creation of the Baronetage in England,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 22 (1959), 314-15.

34. Quoted in Philip Styles, “Politics and Historical Research in the Early Seventeenth Century,” in English Historical Scholarship in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Levi Fox (London: Oxford Univ. Press for the Dugdale Society, 1956), p. 51; see also Ronald A. Rebholz, The Life of Fulke Greville, First Lord Brooke (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), pp. 208-10.