As part of our Power, Legitimacy, and the Silenced Woman series, we will delve into three of Shakespeare’s most provocative plays of rule and resistance. In September, Henry VIII unfolds in spectacle and scandal, as queens are crowned and cast aside amid the high-stakes theatre of Tudor ambition. October brings Measure for Measure, a darkly compelling look at justice, hypocrisy, and moral power in a city strained by authoritarian rule. Finally, in November, King John closes the series with a kingdom on the brink, where thrones are contested and maternal fury breaks through the clamor of politics.
Across these plays, we’ll explore Shakespeare’s complex vision of power—how it is claimed, performed, and disrupted, especially through the voices of women navigating the perils of legitimacy and authority.
Meetings tend to be held on the first Saturday of each month-- for those wishing to read ahead:)
Maryama Antoine
About the Play
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth, often shortened to Henry VIII, is a collaborative history play, written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, based on the life of Henry VIII.
An alternative title, All Is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, with the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication in the First Folio of 1623. Stylistic evidence indicates that individual scenes were written by either Shakespeare or his collaborator and successor, John Fletcher. It is also somewhat characteristic of the late romances in its structure. It is noted for having more stage directions than any of Shakespeare's other plays.
During a performance of Henry VIII at the Globe Theatre in 1613, a cannon shot employed for special effects ignited the theatre's thatched roof and beams, burning the original Globe building to the ground.
Synopsis:
Two stories dominate Henry VIII: the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, Henry’s powerful advisor, and Henry’s quest to divorce Queen Katherine, who has not borne him a male heir, and marry Anne Bullen (Boleyn).
First, the Duke of Buckingham questions Wolsey’s costly staging of a failed meeting with the French king. Wolsey arrests Buckingham and accuses him of treason; testimony from a bribed witness leads to Buckingham’s execution. Queen Katherine takes a stand against Wolsey. Wolsey gives a party at which Henry meets Anne.
Henry falls in love with Anne and seeks to divorce Katherine, but Katherine refuses to be judged by Wolsey and other church officials. The king secretly marries Anne and then has her crowned queen. Meanwhile, Henry discovers Wolsey’s treachery against him. Wolsey, arrested, falls sick and dies. Katherine also sickens and dies.
Cranmer, the new archbishop of Canterbury, comes under attack, but receives the king’s support. Anne gives birth to a daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth. Cranmer prophesies marvelous reigns for her and her unnamed successor, James.
Sources
As usual in his history plays, Shakespeare relied primarily on Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles to achieve his dramatic ends and to accommodate official sensitivities over the materials involved. Other material was sourced or adapted from the 1570 edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, for example Catherine of Aragon's plea to Henry before the Legatine Court.
Shakespeare not only telescoped events that occurred over a span of two decades, but jumbled their actual order. The play implies, without stating it directly, that the treason charges against the Duke of Buckingham were false and trumped up; and it maintains a comparable ambiguity about other sensitive issues. The disgrace and beheading of Anne Boleyn (here spelled Bullen) is carefully avoided, and no indication of the succeeding four wives of Henry VIII can be found in the play.
