‘Henry VIII.’
A like problem is presented by ‘Henry VIII.’ The play was nearly associated with the final scene in the history of that theatre which was identified with the triumphs of Shakespeare’s career. ‘Henry VIII’ was in course of performance at the Globe Theatre on June 29, 1613, when the firing of some cannon incidental to the performance set fire to the playhouse, which was burned down. The theatre was rebuilt next year, but the
new fabric never acquired the fame of the old. Sir Henry Wotton, describing the disaster on July 2, entitled the piece that was in process of representation at the time as ‘All is True representing some principal pieces in the Reign of Henry VIII.’ [261] The play of ‘Henry VIII’ that is commonly allotted to Shakespeare is loosely constructed, and the last act ill
coheres with its predecessors. The whole resembles an ‘historical masque.’ It was first printed in the folio of Shakespeare’s works in 1623, but shows traces of more hands than one. The three chief characters—the king, Queen Katharine of Arragon, and Cardinal Wolsey—bear clear marks of Shakespeare’s best workmanship; but only act i. sc. i., act ii. sc. iii. and iv. (Katharine’s trial), act iii. sc. ii. (except ll. 204-460), act v. sc. i. can on either æsthetic or metrical grounds be confidently assigned to him. These portions may, according to their metrical characteristics, be dated, like the ‘Winter’s Tale,’ about 1611. There are good grounds for assigning nearly all the remaining thirteen scenes to the pen of Fletcher, with occasional aid from Massinger. Wolsey’s familiar farewell to Cromwell (III. ii. 204-460) is the only passage the authorship of which excites really grave embarrassment. It recalls at every point the style of Fletcher, and nowhere that of Shakespeare. But the Fletcherian style, as it is here displayed, is invested with a greatness that is not matched elsewhere in Fletcher’s work. That Fletcher should have exhibited such faculty once and once only is barely credible, and we are driven to the alternative conclusion that the noble valediction was by Shakespeare, who in it gave proof of his versatility by echoing in a glorified key the habitual strain of Fletcher, his colleague and virtual successor. James Spedding’s theory that Fletcher hastily completed Shakespeare’s unfinished draft for the special purpose of enabling the company to celebrate the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine, which
took place on February 14, 1612-13, seems fanciful. During May 1613, according to an extant list, nineteen plays were produced at Court in honour of the event, but ‘Henry VIII’ is not among them. [263a] The conjecture that Massinger and Fletcher alone collaborated in ‘Henry VIII’ (to the exclusion of Shakespeare altogether) does not deserve serious consideration. [263b]