Who from the sacred ashes of her honour That were the servants to this chosen infant, And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches To all the plains about him. Our children's children Shall see this, and bless heaven. EPILOGUE. [Exeunt. ['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, 't is clear, They'll say 't is naught: others, to hear the city Abus'd extremely, and to cry, "That 's witty!"" 223 NOTES TO KING HENRY VIII. DRAMATIS PERSONE. 1. HENRY VIII. was born in 1491. He was the second son of Henry VII. (see note 6 to Richard III.), and became heir-apparent on the death of his elder brother Arthur in 1502. At an early age he was betrothed to his brother's widow, Katharine of Aragon (see note 27), who was six years older than himself. In 1509 Henry acceded to th throne, and the marriage took place immediately upon his accession. In 1519 Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador, thus describes the king: "His majesty is twentynine years old, and extremely handsome. Nature could not have done more for him. He is much handsomer than any other sovereign of Christendom,-a good deal handsomer than the King of France,-very fair, and his whole frame admirably proportioned. He is very accomplished, a good musician, composes well, is a most capital horseman, a fine jouster, speaks good French, Latin, and Spanish, is very religious, is very fond of hunting, and never takes his diversion without tiring eight or ten horses. In England, the first part of Henry's reign was marked chiefly by its splendours and festivities. His great aim was to win for himself and for his country a leading position in Europe-an aim in which he was entirely successful. Shortly after coming to the throne he joined Ferdinand and Maximilian in a league against France. While in France Henry was winning the battle of Spurs (Aug. 18, 1513) Surrey at home was defeating the Scots at Flodden. In 1514 peace was made with France, and the king's sister Mary was married to Louis XII. In 1520 (after the accession of Francis I.) occurred the pseudo-chivalric episode of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, which was followed in 1523-25 by a French war. In 1526 Henry's "scrupulosity of conscience" began to suggest the advisability of a divorce from his wife, and he already saw his way to a new queen in the person of Anne Boleyn. (See notes 27 and 28.) In 1533 the marriage with Anne took place, and, later in the same year, the former marriage was declared null. It was in consequence of the pope's refusal to sanction the divorce that Henry ere long found himself in open opposition to the papal authority. In 1534 the Act of Supremacy was promulgated, and in the next year two of the noblest victims of the reign-Sir Thomas More, and Fisher, bishop of Winchester-were executed for refusing to accept it. The dissolution of the monasteries followed, and in 1538 Henry was formally deposed by the pope. The English Reformation, as it is called, was largely, if not entirely, a party affair; nor was it very thorough in its Protestantism. Its success, however, was unquestionable, and not less so the firmness and sagacity by which the king, at this perilous crisis, avoided the dangers which menaced him on every side. In 1536 Anne Boleyn had been executed, and on the day after her execution Henry had married one of her maids of honour, Jane Seymour, who died in 1537, two days after giving birth to a son, afterwards Edward VI. In 1539 Cromwell had the charge of finding for the king a new and Protestant wife. The choice was unfortunate, and Anne of Cleves was divorced and pensioned off six months after her marriage. On August 8, 1540, she was succeeded by Katharine Howard, who was beheaded February 13, 1542. Henry's last wife, who had the happiness to survive him, was Katharine Parr, whom he married July 10, 1543. During the later part of his reign Henry's popularity had abated; faction, civil and religious, began to show itself; there was general discontent in the land. In 1542 James V. of Scotland invaded England, but his army was defeated at Solway Moss. The English troops invaded France in 1544, and Boulogne was taken. Peace was concluded, somewhat ineffectually, in 1546. On January, 28, 1547, the king died, leaving in the minds of his people as strong a feeling of relief as that with which they had welcomed him to the throne. Henry's character has been judged from every point of view; perhaps nothing better could be said than in these words, written of a later and a lesser man: "That mass of huVOL. VIII. manity profusely mixed of good and evil, of generous ire and mutinous, of the passion for the future of mankind and vanity of person, magnanimity and sensualism, high judgment, reckless indiscipline, chivalry, savagery, solidity, fragmentariness, was dust." The children of Henry who survived him were: 1. Mary, afterwards queen (by Katharine of Aragon); 2. Elizabeth, afterwards queen (by Anne Boleyn); 3. Edward, who ascended the throne on the death of his father (by Jane Seymour). 2. CARDINAL WOLSEY. Thomas Wolsey was born at Ipswich, probably in 1471. He was the eldest son of Robert Wolsey, not, as was commonly reported, a butcher, but a grazier, and perhaps a wool merchant. Wolsey was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took his B.A. at the age of fifteen. He afterwards became M.A. and was elected a fellow of his college. Through the interest of the Marquis of Dorset he obtained, on his taking orders, the living of Lymington. In 1501 he became chaplain to Henry Dean, archbishop of Canterbury. Two years later the archbishop died, and Wolsey obtained a chaplaincy with a favourite agent of the king's, Sir Richard Nanfan, treasurer of Calais, through whose "instant labour and special favour" he became chaplain to Henry VII. By 1509 we find him dean of Lincoln. On the accession of Henry VIII. Wolsey's rise was rapid. He was appointed king's almoner, then privy-councillor; in 1510 he was made canon of Windsor, in 1511 prebendary of York, in 1512 dean of York. Ere long we find him organizing the army which was to win the battle of Spurs in France in 1513. Wolsey was now appointed Bishop of Lincoln, and six months after (July, 1514) Archbishop of York. He had also Bath, Worcester, and Hereford in farm. In 1515 he was appointed lord-chancellor, and in the same year Pope Leo X., at the urgent desire of Henry, conferred upon him the rank of cardinal. In 1518 he was appointed legate, in conjunction with Cardinal Campeggio, and in 1524 the office was settled upon him for life. Henry showered upon him ecclesiastical honours and court preferments; his revenues were enormous, his pomp and splendour equal to that of the king. In 1519 the Venetian ambassador thus described him: "The cardinal is about forty-six years old, very handsome, learned, extremely eloquent, of vast ability, and indefatigable. He alone transacts the same business as that which occupies the magistracies, offices, and councils of Venice, both civil and criminal: and all state affairs are managed by him, let their nature be what it may. He is in great repute, and seven times more so than if he were pope." In 1526 Henry began to raise the question of a divorce from his wife Katharine. Wolsey, though himself disapproving of the measure, did all in his power to convince the pope that it was right, even in his own interests, to oblige Henry, who was in danger of throwing off his allegiance to Rome. His policy was defeated at the papal court through the counter-influence of Charles V., Katharine's nephew. The pope's refusal precipitated the foreseen result, and brought Wolsey into disgrace along with Katharine. On October 9, 1529, a writ of præmunire was issued against him, on the ground that his acts as legate were contrary to statute. A week later 225 206 the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk demanded from him the great seal, and on his refusal to surrender it to them, returned next day with letters from the king. He surrendered the seal, left York Place, and retired to a little house at Esher. Here, after some time, a portion of his money and goods was restored to him; he was allowed to resume his archbishopric, and to remove to Richmond. In November, 1530, he was again arrested, on a charge of high treason, as he was preparing for his re-installation at York. He was brought by easy stages as far as Leicester, where "he waxed so sicke, that he was almost fallen from his mule." He was lodged at the abbey of Leicester, where, at eight o'clock on the morning of November 29, 1530, he breathed his last. The next day his body was buried in the Grey Friars church, where, as Chapuys notes in his despatch to the emperor, Richard III. was also buried; “and the people call it The Tyrants' Sepulchre." No man," says Brewer in his Reign of Henry VIII., "ever met with harder measure from his contemporaries; and never was the verdict of contemporaries less challenged than in his case by subsequent enquirers" (vol. ii. p. 450). "No statesman of such eminence ever died less lamented. Yet, in spite of all these heavy imputations on his memory, in spite of all this load of obloquy, obscuring our view of the man, and distorting his lineaments, the Cardinal still remains, and will ever remain, as the one prominent figure of this period" (p. 457). 3. CARDINAL CAMPEIUS. Lorenzo Campeggio or Campeggi was born in Bologna, 1479. He was at first engaged in the legal profession, and was professor of law in the University of Padua, but after the death of his wife he entered the Church, and was appointed Bishop of Feltrio in 1512, and afterwards sent to Germany as papal nuncio. He was made cardinal in 1517, and two years later he was sent to England on a mission from the pope. On this occasion he received from Henry the title of Bishop of Salisbury. At the end of 1528 he again came to England, as co-adjutor with Wolsey in the trial of Katharine. "The whole consistorie of the college of Rome," says Holinshed, "sent thither Laurence Campeius, a préest cardinall, a man of great wit and experience." The trial lasted from May 31, 1529, to July 23, 1530, when it was prorogued by Campeius. Henry in consequence deprived him of his bishopric, and he returned to Rome, where he died in 1539. 4. CAPUCIUS, ambassador from the Emperor. The Capucius of this play was Eustace Chapuys, or Chapuis, named by Holinshed Eustachius Caputius. His interview with Katharine (iv. 2) is taken from Holinshed. (See note 235.) He was present at the queen's death, together with Lady Willoughby, who, as Maria de Salucci, had been one of her ladies in waiting. The despatches of Chapuys are printed among the State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. 5. CRANMER, Archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas Cranmer was born at Aslacton in Nottinghamshire, July 2, 1489. He came of an old family, and was trained in all intellectual and physical exercises. He was educated at Jesu College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of D.D. Having attracted the notice of the king he wrote a treatise in favour of the contemplated divorce. Henry On promoted him to the archdeaconry of Taunton, and in 1530 sent him to Italy on a mission connected with the divorce. In 1532 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, upon which he repaid the favour by pronouncing the decree of divorce between Henry and Katharine. September 10 he stood godfather to the Princess Elizabeth, and in all matters of ecclesiastical polity was in ready accord with the king's views. In 1536 he pronounced the marriage of Henry with Anne Boleyn to have been null and void. In 1540 he officiated at the king's marriage with Anne of Cleves, and six months later became the chief instrument of her divorce. It was not long before several conspiracies were formed against him by the orthodox party, in view of his evident latitudinarianism. These intrigues would probably have been successful but for the king's personal intervention. On his death-bed Henry named Cranmer one of the council of government during the minority of Edward VI. On the death of the young king he became, somewhat unwillingly, a partisan of Lady Jane Grey, and on the accession of Mary he was put on trial for treason. He confessed the indictment, and was sentenced to death; his life, however, was spared, and he was kept prisoner in the Tower till March, 1554, when he was called upon, together with Ridley and Latimer, to justify himself from his heresies in public disputation. The decision was of course given against him, and he was afterwards judicially condemned, and his offices and dignities formally taken from him. After his degradation he signed seven successive recantations, but on being brought to the stake he declared to all the people his rejection of these submissions, "as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death." On being chained to the stake, he thrust his right hand into the flames, that it might burn first, and so died, March 21, 1555, not far from the spot now marked at Oxford by the Martyrs' Memorial. 6. DUKE OF NORFOLK. The dramatist has confused the second Duke of Norfolk (1443-1524) with the third duke (1473-1554). The Duke of Norfolk of i 1 is the former-the Earl of Surrey of Richard III. (see note 12 to that play), who became Duke of Norfolk Feb. 1, 1514. In that year he was great chamberlain of England, in 1520 he was guardian and lieutenant of England, and in the following year lord high-steward for the trial of the Duke of Buckingham. In the rest of the play the dramatic character is the third duke, Thomas Howard, created Earl of Surrey Feb. 1, 1514. He led the van of the English army at Flodden (Sept. 9, 1513), was appointed admiral in 1514, privy-councillor in 1516. From 1520 to 1522 he was lord-lieutenant of Ireland; from 1523 to 1525 he was lieutenant of the North. He succeeded his father as third Duke of Norfolk, May 21, 1524. He was lord high-steward of England for the trial of Anne Boleyn, and, though uncle of the queen, pronounced sentence upon her. In 1547 he was attainted for high treason, but in 1553 he was restored to his honours. He died August 25, 1554. 7. DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. This was Edward Stafford, third Duke of Buckingham, son of Henry, second duke, who appears as a character in Richard III. (See note 10 to that play.) He was descended from the Bohuns, and in ii. 1. 103 he speaks of himself as "poor Edward Bohun." (See note 129.) He was born Feb. 3, 1478, and until 1486 was styled Lord Stafford. In that year he was restored to his father's dukedom. In 1495 he was made K.G.; in 1497 he was a captain in the royal army in the west; in 1500 he married Lady Alianor Percy, eldest daughter of Henry, fourth Earl of Northumberland. On the occasion of the enthronement of Warham, archbishop of Canterbury (March 7, 1504), he was high-steward of England, and at the coronation of Henry VIII. (June 24, 1509) he was lord high-constable. He was a member of the privycouncil in 1509, and from January to October 1513 was a captain in the English army in France. Although in i. 1 he tells us that "an untimely ague" kept him prisoner in his chamber on the occasion of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, he is mentioned by Holinshed as having been present: "The lord Cardinall in statelie attire, accompanied with the duke of Buckingham, and other great lords, conducted forward the French King" (iii. 654). According to Holinshed, and, indeed, the general belief of the time, Buckingham's downfall was due to the enmity of Wolsey. There is no certain foundation for this report, and it seems very improbable. On the accusation of his servants and surveyor the duke was arrested on a charge of high treason, and committed to the Tower April 16, 1521. His trial took place on May 13 and the following days; he was condemned, and on the 17th was beheaded on Tower Hill. That he was really guilty of the charges laid to his account it is impossible to believe. His execution was a state necessity: he was too powerful and too dangerous to live. 8. DUKE OF SUFFOLK. This was Charles Brandon, the son of William Brandon, who was Henry VII.'s standardbearer at Bosworth Field, and was there killed by Richard III. in hand-to-hand encounter. Charles Brandon was from the first in high favour with Henry VIII, who in 1513 created him Viscount Lisle, and in February, 1514, Duke of Suffolk. In the latter year he was Henry's ambassador in France, and in 1515 he secretly and precipitately married the king's sister Mary, the widow of Louis XII., thus, by his way of doing it, displeasing the king, who was really in favour of the match. At this time he had been twice married, and his second wife was still living. He had owed many favours to Wolsey, which he repaid by doing his best to accelerate the cardinal's fall. It was he, together with the Duke of Norfolk, who endeavoured to take the great seal from Wolsey without the written commission of the king (see iii. 2). He afterwards signed the bill of articles drawn up against the cardinal. In 1532 he accompanied the king to France, and received from Francis the order of St. Michael. In 1533 he was sent with the Duke of Norfolk to announce the king's marriage to Katharine, on which occasion he was appointed high-steward for the day. On the death of his wife Mary, the "French queen," he immediately married Katharine, daughter of the widowed Lady Willoughby, his ward. On the occasion of the suppression of the monasteries Suffolk obtained a large share of the abbey lands; he received from the king numerous honours and commissions, including the position of steward of the royal household; on August 24, 1545, he died at Guildford, and was buried at the king's charge at Windsor. 9. EARL OF SURREY. Historically, this was Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the poet and scholar, executed in 1547; but in iii. 2. 256 the dramatic character identifies himself with his father-the third duke-who was Buckingham's son-in-law. See note 6. 10. LORD CHAMBERLAIN. There were two lord chamberlains during the period of this play. The first was Sir Charles Somerset, natural son of the third Duke of Somerset. (See III. Henry VI. note 4.) In May, 1508, he was appointed lord chamberlain for life. He was created Earl of Worcester Feb. 1, 1514; was chief ambassador to France Nov. 1518 to March 1519, and again in July 1521; he died April 15, 1526. On his death the office of chamberlain was given to William, Lord Sandys, the Lord Sands of the play. See note 15. 11. LORD CHANCELLOR. During the period of this play the office of lord chancellor was held by Sir Thomas More and Sir Thomas Audley. Sir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, Chief-justice of the King's Bench, was born in 1480. He studied at Oxford, where he formed a friendship with Erasmus; was called to the bar, and became noted as the most eloquent speaker in the kingdom. He became a great favourite with Henry VIII., and was employed in various public missions abroad. In 1516 he was made a privy-councillor, and in the same year published his Utopia. He was knighted in 1521, and in 1523 was appointed speaker in the House of Commons. In 1529 he was made chancellor, which post he resigned, in consequence of his opposition to the king in the matter of the divorce, on May 16, 1532. In 1534 he was attainted for high treason, and, in spite of the failure of the evidence against him, was found guilty, and beheaded, July 1535. More was succeeded in the chancellorship by Sir Thomas Audley, who is, historically, the chancellor named in the "order of the procession," iv. i. 36. He 12. GARDINER, Bishop of Winchester. Stephen Gardiner was born at Bury St. Edmunds in 1483. He is believed to have been the illegitimate son of Dr. Woodville, bishop of Salisbury, brother of the queen of Edward IV. studied at Cambridge, and afterwards distinguished himself in the canon and civil law. His abilities were noticed by Cardinal Wolsey, who made him his secretary, and in 1527 he accompanied Wolsey on his mission to France. It was owing to his advocacy that the commission was issued by the pope for the trial of Katharine. In 1529 he was appointed the king's secretary, and in 1531 he became Bishop of Winchester, in succession to Wolsey. In 1534 he wrote a treatise, De Vera Obedientia, in defence of the royal supremacy. In the following year he had a dispute with Cranmer, and some years later he endeavoured to fasten a charge of heresy upon the archbishop, in which, but for the king's intervention, he would probably have been successful. When Edward VI. came to the throne Gardiner's opinions caused his committal to the Fleet, and afterwards to the Tower, where he remained during the five years of Edward's reign. Mary's first act on her accession was to release the various state prisoners, among whom was Gardiner: he |