Scene 3. (a) Mr Halliwell-Phillipps supposes that this incident of the rising of the ghosts may have been suggested to Shakspeare by similar incidents in some more ancient composition. See above, Introduction, p. 207. (b) The following eleven lines are found in the ordinary text :"What do I fear? myself? there's none else by: Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I. Is there a murderer here? No ;-yes, I am : Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why, Lest I revenge myself upon myself. Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? for any good That I myself have done unto myself? O, no! alas, I rather hate myself For hateful deeds committed by myself! I am a villain: yet I lie, I am not. Fool, of thyself speak well :-fool, do not flatter." It was Ritson's opinion that not only these eleven lines, but the whole passage, extending to "two-and-twenty lines," is "either not Shakspeare's, or so unworthy of him, that it were to be wished it would with propriety be degraded to the margin"; and he speaks of it as "an interpolation which is in the highest degree childish and unnatural." Upon which Steevens remarks: "I rather suppose these lines (though genuine) to have been crossed out of the stage manuscript by Shakspeare himself, and afterwards restored by the original but tasteless editor of his play." For my own part, I am content to adopt Mr Hudson's just and discerning criticism: "In this strange speech there are some ten lines in or near the poet's best style; the others are in his worst-so inferior, indeed, that it is not easy to understand how Shakspeare could have written them." See also 'Shakspeare's Life, Art, &c.,' vol. ii. p. 167, sq. To add to the uncertainty of the text, Johnson proposed to place lines 220-222 after line 199; Dyce, whom I have followed, adopted the transposition proposed by Mason (see note of the former); and Lettsom would make still further transpositions in this portion of the play. Lines 216-218 are omitted in the folio. (c) "Mother's" is a misprint in the second edition of Holinshed, which Shakspeare followed, for "brother's," which is found in the first edition, and in Hall. "Richmond was, in fact, held in a sort of honourable custody at the Duke of Bretagne's Court, his means being supplied by Charles, Duke of Burgundy, who was Richard's brother-in-law."-HUDSON. Compare Stubbs, vol. iii. p. 230, sq. VOL. III. Y Scene 4. : (a) "The order of the battle is from the Chronicle; but the unhorsing of Richard is imaginary it is allowed that he displayed much personal bravery; and we are told that in this instance the personal conflict between the two rivals, which almost always occurs on the stage, did actually take place. It is, however, not stated that Richard fell by Henry's own hand."-COURTENAY, vol. ii. p. 114. Scene 5. (a) Mr Hudson has transposed the line there omitted "Divided in their dire division " so as to place it after "The true succeeders of each royal house." But while it adds nothing to the sense, and contains nothing to justify its insertion, it tends to render a sentence, which at best is awkwardly constructed, still more objectionable. (b) Considering what important use is made of the name of Elizabeth in the development of the plot of this play, it is rather unsatisfactory that she herself has not appeared in it. "Elizabeth was the undoubted heiress of York [as daughter of Edward IV.], and certainly conveyed to the Tudors their best hereditary title. Henry was not the representative of Lancaster in any sense in which that representation would have given him a title to the crown, either ancestral or parliamentary. Through his mother he was the representative of the Beauforts; but the crown was never given by Parliament to the heirs of John of Gaunt. The Lancastrian title began with Henry IV. Even, therefore, if the legitimation of the Beauforts had not contained [as it did] a bar to their claim to the royal succession, they would have had no claim while any descendants remained of the elder brother of John of Gaunt."-COURTENAY, vol. ii. p. 114. INTRODUCTION TO KING HENRY VIII. THE interval between the close of King Richard III. and the opening of King Henry VIII. is 35 years; of which the principal events will be recalled to the reader's memory by the following sum mary: 1485 (August 22). BATTLE OF BOSWORTH. Richard killed. Henry VII. made king. 1486. Henry marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV. 1487. Invasion of Lambert Simnel, calling himself the Earl of Warwick, son of Clarence, defeated at Stoke. 1492. Perkin Warbeck, calling himself Richard, Duke of York, son of Edward IV., begins to assert his claims to the throne. 1499. Warbeck, after escaping from captivity, is recaptured and executed. 1501. Arthur, Prince of Wales, in his 15th year, marries Katharine of Aragon, aged 18. 1502. Death of Prince Arthur. Katharine is contracted to Prince Henry, then 11 years old. 1503. Death of Queen Elizabeth of York. 1509. Death of Henry VII., aged 53. Henry VIII., now 18, succeeds: marries Katharine of Aragon, now 26. 1513 (Aug.) French defeated by Henry at the battle of the Spurs. (Sept.) Battle of Flodden Field. Defeat of the Scots by the Earl of Surrey, and death of James IV. 1514. Peace made with France, and Henry's sister the Princess Mary, married to Louis XII., and (he dying 3 months afterwards) subsequently to Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. 1515. Wolsey created a cardinal, and Lord Chancellor. 1517. Wolsey made Papal Legate. 1520. Emperor Charles V. visits Henry at Canterbury. Henry visits Francis I. FIELD OF THE CLOTH-OF-GOLD. It may be of use to carry on this table, so as to indicate here the chronological order of events (which Shakspeare, for artistic reasons, has considerably departed from) during the period occupied by the play. 1521. Impeachment and death of Buckingham, the 3d Duke. Henry, now 31, receives from the Pope, Leo X., the title of "Defender of the Faith," for having written a book against Luther. 1525. Henry's attempt to levy forced loans, being resisted, is withdrawn. 1527. Henry having doubts about the legality of his marriage with Katharine, submits the case to the Pope, Clement VII. 1528. Commission from the Pope to Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio to try the question. 1529. Katharine appeals to the Pope, and the cause is finally avocated to Rome. FALL OF WOLSEY. Sir Thomas More made Chancellor. 1530. Wolsey arrested for high treason, dies at Leicester. 1531. Queen Katharine withdraws from Court. 1532. Anne Boleyn made Marchioness of Pembroke. Married privately to Henry. Act passed for restraining all appeals to Rome. 1533. Cranmer made Archbishop of Canterbury. Declares the king's marriage with Katharine void, and with Anne Coronation of Anne. Birth of Princess Eliza legal. 1534. Act passed for abolishing authority of the Pope in England. 1535. Execution of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More for refusing to take the oath required by Acts of Supremacy and of Succession, by which the children of Anne were to succeed to the throne. Thomas Cromwell appointed VicarGeneral. 1536. Death of Katharine of Aragon, aged 50. Execution of Anne Boleyn on a charge of adultery. Henry survives till January 1547. "From the reign of Henry VII. it would probably have been difficult to make a good play;1 but it would have been still more difficult to make of the first of the Tudor kings a hero, who would realise the prophecy of Henry VI. [3 King Henry VI., iv. 6. 68-77], and the expectations of the conquerors of Bosworth Field. In the play of Henry VIII. Shakspeare does not forget that the king was the father of Elizabeth."-COURTENAY, vol. ii. p. 119. "The beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. is just at the transition period from medieval to modern history, when the feudal baronial power had been exhausted by the Wars of the Roses, and the monarchy, gaining strength from the ruin of the nobility, had been further fortified by the sagacious dominion of Henry VII. The drama of Henry VIII, was composed by Shakspeare at the distance of only a little more than half a century from the events which it illustrates. . . . To the poet and his contemporaries these events had all the distinctness of comparatively recent occurrences, and, as such, the imagination had a difficult task in dealing with them.". Professor REED, p. 189. 1. AUTHORSHIP AND SOURCES OF THE PLAY.-There has been much disputing among critics as to the extent to which the genuine work of Shakspeare is to be found in this play. According to Professor Dowden (Primer,' p. 153), “it has been shown conclusively by Mr Spedding (New Shaks. Soc. Transactions,' 1874) that the play is in part from Shakspeare's hand, in part from Fletcher's. . . . Fletcher's verse had certain strongly marked characteristics, one of which is the very frequent occurrence of double endings. A portion of Henry VIII. is written in the verse of Fletcher, and a portion as certainly in Shakspeare's verse. Shakspeare's part is: Act i. sc. 1, 2; Act ii. sc. 3, 4; Act iii. sc. 2 (to exit of king); Act i. sc. 1. The rest of the play is by Fletcher. In Shakspeare's part the proportion of double endings is 1 to 3; in Fletcher's, 1 to 1.7." Mr Furnivall corroborates this view in his Introduction, pp. xciiixcvi (where he gives large quotations from Mr Spedding, of which I have availed myself in my notes on the several scenes); and observes that "Mr Spedding's division of the play between Shakspeare and Fletcher [originally put forth in 'Gentleman's Magazine,' August 1850] was confirmed independently by the late Mr S. Hickson, 1 Ford has dramatised a portion of the reign in his historical play, Perkin Warbeck, 1634, in which King Henry VII. and James IV. of Scotland are among the principal characters, the hero being Warbeck himself, and the heroine his wife, Lady Katharine Gordon. |