Shakespeare's New Model of Nobility: Buckingham's Christian Virtue and Respect for Law

The play opens with Norfolk and Buckingham's discussion of Henry VIII's recent visit to France. Unlike Henry V, who leads the English to France in order to conquer it, Henry VIII takes his nobles to France for a “great sport,” a pageant arranged for the meeting of the kings, known for its sumptuous displays, “all clinquant in gold,” “all gilt,” and with “dwarfish pages” dressed as “cherubims,” as Norfolk reports. During ceremonies and jousts “the noble spirits [called] to arms” performed “beyond thought's compass” (I.i.13–38). The very hyperbole of Norfolk's account suggests that aristocratic chivalry is a thing of the past, something commemorated in spectacle for the sake of sport rather than a matter of life and death. Bolingbroke's challenge of Mowbray to a trial by combat at the beginning of the second tetralogy is mirrored in the call to arms for the pageant in France that is only a dim memory of such serious times (Richard II, I.i.48–152). Far removed from the valor on display when kingdoms were at stake, the occasion described at the beginning of Henry VIII accompanies the negotiation of a commercial treaty between England and France. The Tudor monarchy appears to have brought peace, spectacle, and commerce in the place of war and courageous deeds. Although a war comes when the treaty is soon violated, we hear about it almost in passing (I.i.86–96). It is a war over commerce rather than an English claim to the French throne, and it seems to have little impact on the events that Shakespeare dramatizes.

These are not the times of Henry V's inspiring appeals to nobility and patriotism against the French, as at Agincourt (e.g., Henry V, IV.iii). In Henry VIII, England's “travell'd gallants” become so devoted to the “fool and feather that they got in France” that a “new proclamation” must be made for their “reformation” (I.iii.1–47; cf. Henry V, IV.iii.110–20). Nor is the elaborate spectacle in France the only one in Henry VIII, which has been called “a play of pageantry.”Footnote ⁵ There is Wolsey's supper for the beauties of the realm (when the king and his company come disguised as shepherds), the coronation of Anne Bullen, and then Elizabeth's baptism—all described in the glittering terms of the display in France (I.iv.1–4 and 64–72; IV.i.36–55; V.iv.1–11). England seems ready for spectacles, even if some of them lead to excesses that require reformation, if not the Reformation that convulsed the Christian world. At the end of the play, the empty display of chivalry at the beginning is superseded by a religious-political event, Elizabeth's public christening, which Cranmer interprets through his prophecy. Moreover, Shakespeare's own drama is itself a spectacle, one that presents so many spectacles and gives them meaning by their place in the whole.

While the court becomes filled with “talk and tailors,” Cardinal Wolsey, one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, dominates English politics. He is a man whom Buckingham describes as a “holy fox, / Or wolf, or both (for he is equal rav'nous / As he is subtle)” (I.i.158–60). Shakespeare raises the question whether a demise of noble virtue signals the rise merely of a politics devoted to riches and power. Wolsey is not even as stately as the lion of Machiavelli's memorable beastly duo. Buckingham and Norfolk use other animal images to refer to Wolsey. Buckingham disdains the “butcher's cur” who is of “humble stock” (I.i.120; IV.ii.49). The church allows men like Wolsey to rise to political preeminence, without the virtues and hence restraints of noble birth. Although Wolsey is “not propped by ancestry, whose grace chalks successors their way,” he is not “called upon for high feats” done for the crown. Rather, “spiderlike / Out of his self-drawing web,” according to Norfolk, the man has manipulated his way to the top (I.i.59–66). He is soon accused of paying for false testimony against Buckingham and of taking bribes from the German emperor to undermine the treaty with France that he had been instrumental in bringing into effect (I.i.174–90; and 223–24).

Buckingham condemns Wolsey's treatment of the nobility, for by his own authority Wolsey “makes up the file / Of all the gentry,” and ignores the “honourable board of council” (I.i.75–80). Buckingham claims even to have “proof” of Wolsey's misdeeds in the matter of the French treaty and intends to denounce him to the king (I.i.151–56 and 197). He is indignant that “A beggar's book outworths a noble's blood” (I.i.122–23; 126–27). Buckingham appears initially as a version of the noble type of man represented in the second tetralogy by Hotspur. Like Hotspur, he is haughty and hot-tempered. He must be cautioned by Norfolk to “ask God for temp'rance” and to “let your reason with your choler question / What 'tis you go about” (I.i.124 and 130–31), just as Hotpsur's father and uncle warn him to contain his spiritedness (cf. I.i.123–56 with Henry IV, Part I, I.iii.125–234; also III.i.1–189). Like Hotspur, Buckingham does not survive. His intention to denounce Wolsey is forgotten, when Wolsey has him arrested for treason, brings testimony against him, and he is found guilty and executed.Footnote ⁶

Buckingham manifests a respect for legal procedure and a Christian patience and hope, however, which temper the rebellious spirit and intransigence that he might otherwise share with noble men like Hotspur. In the first place, he takes great solace as he goes to his execution that he was condemned to die in the course of a trial, “a noble one,” in which he was allowed to present his case and his peers judged on the basis of the evidence presented (II.i.118–20). In other words, the procedures accord to the accused the respect that belongs to a noble. “The great duke / came to the bar,” and “alleg'd / Many sharp reasons to defeat the law.” “Much / He spoke and learnedly for life,” before his peers. Moreover, his accusers were “brought viva voce to his face” (II.i.11–18 and 25–28). Although the character of his trial reconciles Buckingham to his condemnation, he does not call his trial just when he refers to its nobility (cf. II.i.119 with II.ii.91). Justice is imperfect, especially because there are those who bribe witnesses (I.i.222–23; V.i.131–38). And yet a just trial is a possibility only when rules exist, when both sides are heard, and when there are judges who are expected to be impartial (see II.ii.103–6).

No such trial was expected in the earlier time Shakespeare described in Richard II, where both Bolingbroke and Mowbray were eager to prove their legal claims through bloody combat. Although Richard II wished to hear “the accuser and the accused freely speak,” he knew that both parties were “high-stomach'd” and “full of ire, / In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire” (I.i.17–19 and I.iii.1–41). Mowbray, for example, disdains the “cold words” that “are but the trial of a women's war” (I.i.47–48). In that play, the king forestalls the combat by pronouncing his own judgment on accuser and accused (I.iii.119–53). There is no trial, by combat or otherwise.Footnote ⁷ Even “less happier” were the lawless times of the tyrannical Richard III, which Buckingham mentions in contrast to his own, when his own father, the previous duke of Buckingham, was assassinated without a day in court (II.i.107–121).Footnote ⁸ A “trial of a woman's war,” as Mowbray calls it, has now become a noble standard for Buckingham.

In the second place, in spite of his hot temper, Buckingham demonstrates a strength of character afforded by his Christianity, as foreshadowed in Norfolk's advice to rein in his spiritedness by asking God for temperance. When he is arrested, he prays that “The will of heav'n  / Be done in this and all things: I obey” (I.i.209–10). And when his sentence of death is read, he “something spoke in choler, ill and hasty / But fell to himself again, and sweetly / In all the rest showed a most noble patience” (II.i.31–36). The Christian virtue of patience can be noble, because it entails not only suffering, but a way of enduring suffering. Shakespeare shows us a reflection of that strength in Wolsey, whose repentance after his fall from power gives him a “fortitude of soul,” for he is now able “To endure more miseries and greater far / Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer” (III.ii.387–90).

When Buckingham speaks to the “good people” who meet him on his way to his execution, he tells them that he bears no malice toward the law for his death, and though he could wish those who sought his death better Christians he “heartily forgive[s] them.” Feeling already “half in heaven,” Buckingham offers prayers for the king and his good rule of England. Indeed, he “forgive[s] all,” for “No black envy / Shall mark my grave” (II.i.56–94). He forgives not because his enemies deserve it, but because of his own goodness, which he does not want to mar with malice or envy.Footnote ⁹ In his portrayal of Buckingham, Shakespeare weds Christian forgiveness to a noble self-regard. Buckingham's Christian virtues, his patience, his submission to God's will, and especially his forgiveness, manifest his strength of soul. His very forgiveness of those who wronged him is a sign of his generosity or bounty, for he treats them better than they deserve. The people call him “bounteous Buckingham, / The mirror of all courtesy” (II.i.49–53). Nobility need not be replaced simply by the power politics practiced by Wolsey, for a “noble trial” is possible for human beings, in which a Christian temperance helps the accused submit his case to a court rather than resort to force. And there are virtues such as “noble patience,” generosity, and the protection of the weak against the injustice of those in office. Shakespeare attributes the latter also to Buckingham, for he had heeded the complaints of his tenants about his surveyor and removed him from office (I.ii.171–73). So too Buckingham achieves a humility that looks beyond noble birth to what is truly noble, as when he demonstrates a noble patience and speaks of a noble trial that follows the forms of law. He no longer claims in his pride that his noble blood should weigh against Wolsey. Earlier he proclaimed that “difference” must be maintained, in the sense of difference in rank, distinguishing the low-born Wolsey from the aristocracy (I.i.138–39). As he leaves court, he proclaims “difference” in another sense: “When I came hither I was Lord High Constable / And Duke of Buckingham: now poor Edward Bohun; yet I am richer than my base accusers” (II.i.102–4).

To be sure, if Buckingham is consoled by some of the aspects of the proceedings against him, his consolations are not great, for he goes to his death warning the people, who accompany him on his way to his execution, that they should be wary of false friends, for those to whom one gives one's heart “fall away” when they “perceive the least rub in your fortunes.” Like his father, he is brought down by his servant, “by those men we lov'd most.” His life has been a “long weary” one (II.i.121–33). And although he thinks he might appeal to Henry's mercy, he will “not sue,” for “further life in this world I ne'er hope” (II.i.69–71; cf. I.ii.210–14).

Shakespeare questions Buckingham's resignation about what is to be expected from life in this world in three ways. First, Wolsey has Buckingham's son-in-law the earl of Surrey sent away to a foreign post before proceeding against him, knowing that Surrey would have stood by Buckingham (II.i.41–44). Surrey does return to England in the course of the play to support measures against Wolsey (III.ii.6–9). Second, Katherine stands up for Buckingham when he is accused by Wolsey, as we shall see, casting doubt on the charges brought against him (I.ii.171–73). Third, there are the “good people,” whom Buckingham addresses after his verdict, “the commons” who “love and dote” on Buckingham (II.i.55–75). The “commons” we meet here resemble Buckingham, for they too perceive “differences” between persons when they distinguish the bounteous Buckingham from his corrupt antagonist, whom they “hate . . . perniciously” (II.i.49–52). The common people “fall away” from Buckingham no more than did Surrey or the Queen, when they perceive his misfortune. Indeed, the people appear on stage—to show their support—only after Buckingham has been condemned. They too can distinguish the noble from the base. Buckingham goes to his death asking “all good people” to go with him like good angels to his end, to lift his soul to heaven by their prayers, and to remember in their sad tales “how [he] fell” (II.i.71–78 and 131–35). No noble self-sufficiency distances him from the commoners who love him, even as “the long divorce of steel falls on [him]” (II.i.71 and 76). Just as Shakespeare includes the good people in his play as support for Buckingham, Buckingham's reference to Heaven indicates the democratic thrust of Christianity: heaven is the reward not for noble birth, but for noble souls, and one is helped there by others' prayers.

Katherine's Christian Life versus Wolsey's Repentant Death

We first meet Katherine in the second scene of Act I, and Shakespeare shows us her Christian virtues of charity and benevolence. Whereas Buckingham is said to have no womanish fear of death (II.i.37–38), Katherine demonstrates womanly virtues that belong to this life but also prepare her for the next. Her entrance into court—and into the play—is abrupt, and interrupts the proceedings. Wolsey has made charges of treason against Buckingham. Like a director and playwright, he pays Buckingham's surveyor to play a role (or so Buckingham believes [I.i.222–23]), and presumably coaches the lines the surveyor delivers. When Wolsey presents his play before the king, and Henry calls for the surveyor to be brought in to report on his former master's treasons, we hear a voice offstage, “Room for the Queen” (I.ii.8–9). Katherine enters rather than the dishonest surveyor. In Wolsey's play, there is no room for the queen. Nor is she summoned by the king. She nevertheless comes to tell Henry that his subjects suffer from heavy taxes imposed by Wolsey and that they are in uproar. She appears more informed about happenings in England than her husband, for she has been “solicited not by a few” to help to remedy the situation (I.ii.18). Whereas we have just heard Henry thanking the cardinal for his “great care” of the king's life in uncovering the threat Buckingham posed, it is Katherine who urges her husband to “love [himself]” and therefore to have a care for the honor and the dignity of his office (I.ii.14–18). That honor and dignity requires correcting the measures undertaken by the greedy Wolsey. Self-love commands good rule from a king, at least as Katherine understands and tries to convey to her husband.

Only after Katherine speaks does Norfolk confirm the desperate condition of the people that Katherine mentions (I.ii.29–37). The nobility, as in the case of the accusations against Buckingham, seem powerless against Wolsey, and it takes the “bolden'd” and “venturous” queen to bring this situation to the king's attention. Nor does she hesitate to accuse Wolsey to his face: “they say [the taxes] are devised by you,” she tells him (I.ii.50–51). While Wolsey has focused Henry's attention on the charges of treason he appears to have fabricated, Katherine reveals a true crisis of which Henry appears to know nothing. She succeeds in thwarting the cardinal when Henry orders Wolsey to lift the taxes, even if Wolsey tries to claim credit with the people for lifting the very taxes he was instrumental in imposing (I.ii.98–107). Katherine demonstrates that she cares more than Wolsey both for the good of the king and for that of his subjects. Holinshed, from whom Shakespeare gets the story of the tax, does not mention Katherine in that context. As Foakes says, “Katherine's championship of the people in their grievances seems to be the dramatist's invention.”Footnote ¹⁰

When the surveyor finally enters, Katherine speaks to Henry before either he or Wolsey presents the business at hand. “I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham / Is run in your displeasure” (I.ii.109–10). Katherine takes sides with the nobleman, against the cardinal, just as she had with the grieved commoners. She claims that the surveyor's word against the duke should not be trusted because the duke earlier removed him from office upon the complaints of his tenants. She knows of the hypocrisy and injustice of political life, and warns the surveyor “to take good heed / You charge not in your spleen a noble person / And spoil your nobler soul” (I.ii.171–76). She warns the cardinal himself to “Deliver all with charity” (I.ii.142–43). She herself heeds the condition of souls as well as the hunger of bodies, and when Henry remains inclined to heed the words of the surveyor, she can only hope that “God mend all” (I.ii.201). She recognizes her limits in protecting Buckingham, and humanity's ultimate dependence on God, without Buckingham's distrust of life.

Although Shakespeare's Katherine is bolder than the nobility and better informed than the king about the state of his realm, she proceeds with all humility and submission to her king and husband. She speaks boldly concerning the tax, for example, because Henry has “promis'd pardon” for her doing so (I.ii.56). He has in effect commanded her to speak out, albeit at her request (I.i.9–13). And her purpose is to serve her husband, including his honor and dignity as king. She knows how to address the good of the country through addressing the good of its ruler. “Like a jewel [she] has hung twenty years / About [Henry's] neck, yet never lost her lustre,” Norfolk says, echoing his own earlier description of the English and French kings at the jousts in France as “equal in lustre” (cf. II.ii.30–31 with I.i.29). We never meet the French king, but Henry's lustre pales when Katherine's shines. No one in the play serves Henry as well as we see Katherine serve him in the first act. There Shakespeare shows us Katherine as queen, in her glory, before the question of Henry's divorce arises.

Henry claims to fear that the deaths of his and Katherine's male children show God's displeasure that he wed Katherine, inasmuch as she was his brother's widow. And so in considering a divorce from her, he “weigh'd the danger which my realms stood in / By this my issue's fail.” Others in the play suggest that his doubts were encouraged by Wolsey out of malice for Katherine's nephew the German emperor, who did not give him a bishopric he desired. Another, Suffolk, intimates that Henry desires to divorce Katherine because of his affections for Anne Bullen (II.iv.165–204; II.i.156–64; and II.ii.15–21). Whatever his motivation, and all these explanations may be in part true, Henry submits the question of his marriage to Rome, whence Cardinal Campeius arrives to help Wolsey decide the issue (II.ii.95–107). We hear Katherine speak in her defense before the cardinals, as Buckingham was described as doing before his peers. She asks what deeds (“behavior”) has warranted her treatment, and whether she has been “a true and humble wife.” She avers that she “strove to love” her husband's friends, even those whom she knew to be her enemies (II.iv.16–29). Her Christian love does not erase the difference between friend and enemy, just as the people of the realm distinguish between noble and base in their different attitudes toward Buckingham and Wolsey. And she derives support for her love of her enemies in this case through her love of her husband and king. These claims about herself, however, do not address the legality of her marriage, as she recognizes at the end of her speech (II.iv.43–51). Reminding Henry of her virtues and what he shall be losing, however, is not beside the point if he is moved by his attraction for Anne Bullen, as Suffolk suggests.

The trial before the cardinals remains inconclusive, when like a queen Katherine walks out, refusing to recognize the authority of her judges. Far from rejecting the authority of law, when she walks away from the proceedings, she is asserting her own legal rights, as she understands them. She insists, in effect, that there must be an impartial judge (II.iv.14–16 and 75–76; 79–80; see also II.ii.105–6). Wolsey cannot serve this role, she thinks, inasmuch as he is behind the charges against her. No one should be judge and prosecutor at the same time. Even if she thinks of Wolsey as her husband's friend, and strives to love him, she refuses to be judged by her “malicious foe” (II.iv.73–81). Whereas Buckingham thinks his trial a “noble” one, and accepts its verdict, Katherine rejects the trial concerning her marriage. When a court finally declares her marriage null, with Archbishop Cranmer presiding, she does not come when summoned to the proceeding (IV.i.24–33).

Wolsey claims that Katherine “speak[s] not like [her]self” when she accuses him of malice, for she has ever “stood to charity.” Henry, however, finds nothing inconsistent between her behavior toward Wolsey and her Christian virtue. After she leaves, he describes her as the “queen of earthly queens,” and praises her “sweet gentleness,” her “meekness saint-like,” and her “wife-like government, / Obeying in commanding” (II.iv.76–86 and 134–41). Henry knows what he is losing in order to have the opportunity to remarry and to provide for a more stable succession for England (II.iv.194–96; see also II.ii.141–43). When Wolsey later objects to Henry's marriage to Anne Bullen (he already has a foreign marriage in mind for Henry), he refers disdainfully to Anne as “the late queen's gentlewoman,” who would become “her mistress's mistress” and “the queen's queen” (III.ii.95). Wolsey's expression, which echoes Henry's view of Katherine as a queen's queen, implicitly praises Katherine. Whether she is called the princess dowager (widow to Henry's brother Arthur) or the queen of England (III.ii.69–71), Shakespeare's Katherine always remains a queen.

Wolsey, however, does not always possess his power and wealth. After being revealed in his duplicity and greed, he is deprived of his position and his goods by Henry (III.ii.337–44). Like Buckingham, he becomes weary of life, “an old man, broken with the storms of state,” as he says of himself. After his fall from power, he is a changed man, “full of repentance, / Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows” (IV.ii.21 and 27–28). Wolsey advises Thomas Cromwell to “fling away ambition,” to “cherish those hearts that hate [him],” and to “love [him]self last.” Wolsey tells Cromwell that if he falls while following these precepts, he will fall “a blessed martyr” (III.ii.440–49). Wolsey thinks that one who follows the precepts he articulates might come to ruin in political life. Perhaps this explains in part why he himself did not try to follow them. Of course Wolsey nevertheless fell. He was ever “unsatisfied in getting” (IV.ii.55). Indeed, he would have all, as many describe him throughout the play (all the wealth of the realm would be in his hands, e.g., III.ii.283–85), but in the end, as he says, “My robe / And my integrity to heaven is all / I dare call mine own” (III.ii.453–54). Wolsey quickly becomes gravely ill, and seeks from his abbot only for “a little earth for charity” in which to lay his bones. The man whom Katherine reproached for his lack of charity must now ask it from others. The integrity he claims lies only in his newly found self (Wolsey feels his heart “new open'd”) rather than in his deeds, or in his life, which his repentance repudiates. He “found the blessedness of being little,” and “died fearing God” (III.ii.366, 378–85; IV.ii.15–30 and 65–68).

When Katherine asks her servant Griffith for an account of how Wolsey died, she says that she would use even the man she most hated as an example, if he were a good example (IV.ii.9–11). Like Buckingham who forgives his enemies, she bears no malice to Wolsey (IV.ii.46–48). Katherine, however, can hardly take his death as her model. Katherine's wish that “his faults lie gently on him” acknowledges his faults. The repentant Wolsey is able to die well, but Shakespeare questions whether a good death is sufficient for a good life.Footnote ¹¹ The indictment Henry has drawn up against Wolsey reveals “the grand sum of his sins, the articles / Collected from his life” (III.ii.292–93). His “sins” are deeds that can be listed, and for which he is held responsible. Suffolk, after reciting his misdeeds, leaves him with “meditations / How to live better” (III.ii.345–46). Instead of living better, however, Wolsey's meditations are on the wrongs of his life for which he repents. Whether or not Wolsey's death can be a good example for Katherine, his life is not a good example for anyone. As Katherine muses, Wolsey “gave / The clergy ill example” (IV.ii.41–44).

Katherine's actions are consistent with her inner life. When Wolsey and Campeius visit her, she rejects their offer that they withdraw “into [her] private chamber,” for “There's nothing I have done yet, o' my conscience, / Deserves a corner.” As we have seen, Katherine asks to be judged by her life, by her behavior as a wife and as a queen, even though that is not the issue concerning her marriage to Henry. Whereas Buckingham asks the good people accompanying him from his trial “when [they] would say something that is sad / Speak how I fell” (II.i.135–36), Katherine asks Griffith to speak after her death of her “living actions / To keep mine honour from corruption” (IV.ii.71–73). And whereas Wolsey faces death in repentance for his life, Katherine does so with the memory of an honor uncorrupted. As she asserts, I “care not” “if my actions / Were tried by every tongue, every eye saw 'em, / Envy and base opinion set against 'em,” for, “I know my life so even” (III.i.34–37). Wolsey understands “greatness” in terms of the earthly power and authority he has lost, and so says “farewell, to all [his] greatness” (III.ii.351). The “unqueened” Katherine, in contrast, continues to speak out in her own defense, rising to “a last fit of greatness,” she says, “for the sake of her [she] has been” (III.i.77–78), and so continues to be. Griffith, even as she approaches death, recognizes her “wonted greatness” (IV.ii.102).

As Katherine, very weak, falls asleep, she has a vision of angels, calling her to heaven; “they promised me eternal happiness,” she tells Griffith, as she reports her dream. There is no source in the chronicles for these visions who acknowledge her salvation. They are Shakespeare's invention. Shakespeare in effect acknowledges Katherine's salvation, or at least her deserving it. There is nothing analogous for Buckingham and Wolsey, in spite of their good deaths. The contrast Shakespeare shows between Katherine and Wolsey, both in living and in dying, means that for Shakespeare repentance is not the greatest expression of piety. Rather, the greater expression is Katherine's and lies in the life she led, and the deeds of virtue for which no repentance is necessary. In spite of her worthiness her salvation nevertheless depends on God's grace. In her dream, as Katherine describes it, “a blessed troop” invites her to a banquet, promising “eternal happiness,” and offering her garlands, which she says she is “not worthy yet to wear” (IV.ii.90–92). By her own merits, she is like Buckingham only “half in heaven” (II.i.88). Whatever her “living action,” she still understands it to fall short of making her worthy of the heavenly rewards God offers human beings. As Katherine warns her judges, “Heaven's above all yet” (III.i.100); she knows that there is someone above herself.

Shortly before her death, Katherine sends a letter to the king, asking that he do certain things for those whom she leaves behind. Katherine's petition concerns, first, their daughter Mary. She asks Henry to give Mary “virtuous breeding” and to love her for the sake of her mother and his long-time wife, who loved him dearly. Mary is young, and of a noble modest nature, Katherine says, and hopes that she will also deserve well. Her desert is not guaranteed by her nature. Second, Katherine asks Henry to provide for her women who have faithfully served her for so long, especially by finding for each one a noble husband. Third, she asks that he give her men their wages, and even a little more than their wages. She does not say so now, but she again is asking Henry to love himself, and therefore to perform good deeds, even bounteous ones. Her “poor petitions,” which she sends “in all humility to his Highness,” are the poor petitions of a dying woman, who although “unqueened” is “yet like / A queen, and daughter to a king” (IV.ii.129–72). Her words are humble commands, as Henry had described her deeds, “obeying in commanding.” She is not in death the ruined and broken person that Buckingham and Wolsey describe themselves as being. She is herself, even if no longer in name a queen, surrounded by those who were loyal to her through all her miseries, and whom she is trying to provide for as she dies.Footnote ¹²

Henry's Deliverance of Cranmer: The Mutual Support of Politics and Religion

In the play's last act, Henry VIII has a new wife and queen, Anne Bullen, a new archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, and a new issue with which he must deal, the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Shakespeare gives us the sense of a new England, with new characters, and he gives Henry an opportunity to rise to a new prominence as England's king. At the end of the first act, Henry appeared as an unexpected guest, a disguised shepherd, at a supper party hosted by Wolsey. Wolsey recognized Henry as king behind the mask, and offered Henry the place of honor at the table. But it was only at Wolsey's supper table, and it was Wolsey who put him there. Not until the last act, with the demise of the play's major characters—Buckingham, Katherine, and Wolsey himself—does Shakespeare bring Henry to center stage despite his being the title character and the king of England. Earlier in the play, Wolsey could think of himself as in charge of the realm (III.ii.313–16), even if he did not have the control over Henry he supposed (see II.iv.233–38). Katherine for her part could be said to steal the show whenever she appears on stage (see II.iv.131). Henry's new queen Anne Bullen, in contrast, plays nothing of the role Katherine earlier played at court in advising her husband. While Anne is surely not the “spleeny” Lutheran that Wolsey calls her (III.ii.99), her virtues are most manifest in her appreciation of Katherine's goodness, and her pity for the former queen (II.iii.3–5, 10, and 18). That Shakespeare does not give Anne another word after she becomes queen highlights Henry's prominence.

Thomas Cranmer is the churchman who helps Henry to annul his marriage to Katherine and who is then appointed archbishop of Canterbury (II.iv.236–38; III.ii.64–71; and IV.i.24–35). After Wolsey's death, Wolsey's protégé Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester and member of the king's council, charges Cranmer with “filling the whole realm by [his] teaching and [his] chaplains' . . . with new opinions / Divers and dangerous; which are heresies / And not reform'd, may prove pernicious” (V.ii.49–53). Unlike Wolsey, and Buckingham before him, Cranmer is not accused for his illegal or treasonous acts, but for his beliefs. Gardiner suggests that these beliefs will lead to political turmoil (cf. I.iii.59–62). He alludes to the convulsions that plague Germany (V.ii.62–64), which he would like to prevent in England: until Cranmer, and even Anne Bullen, “Sleep in their graves” it will “ne'er be well” for his country. Hearing of Anne Bullen's labor in childbirth, Gardiner wishes the child well, “but for the stock,” he “wish[es] it grubb'd up now” (V.i.22–23 and 29–32). In fact, it is Gardiner's intolerance and fanaticism, as Shakespeare presents them, that illustrate the very spirit of religious conflict that his actions purport to avert for England. His persecution of heresy threatens both the peace of England and religious belief opposed to his own.

Whereas Henry had relied earlier upon Wolsey for a report about Buckingham's ambitions, now the king himself informs Archbishop Cranmer of the charges brewing against him. When Cranmer insists that he stands on truth and honesty, Henry tells him not to expect the “justice and the truth o' th' question” to carry the day, for “corrupt minds” might “procure knaves as corrupt to swear against you” (V.ii.132–33). Henry describes what the corrupt Wolsey may well have done in Buckingham's case. Henry's observation suggests that Cranmer will come to ruin, as Buckingham did earlier, if he does not have Henry to lean on (V.i.114–15; cf. I.ii. stage direction). Cranmer, who presides over Anne's coronation in the play, is among the “sometimes falling stars” who are present at the coronation in all their glory (IV.i.54), as Shakespeare's audience would know. The historical Cranmer was executed for heresy in the reign of Henry's (and Katherine's) Catholic daughter Mary. Cranmer is Henry's “poor and humble subject” (V.i.199, 153–55), but he must depend on Henry to survive. Indeed, when Cranmer addresses his accuser, he does not respond in kind, for although he “could say more” of Gardiner's “daily wrongs,” he tells Gardiner that “reverence to your calling makes me modest” (V.ii.102–3). Buckingham was prevented from accusing Wolsey before the king, as we have seen, by Wolsey's more quick and decisive action against him. Cranmer, in contrast, has no intention of accusing Gardiner, either to the king or to the council itself. He does warn Gardiner that love and meekness “Become a churchman better than ambition: / Win straying souls with modesty again” (V.ii.96–102). However, his own modesty and meekness are no more effective against his enemies than was Buckingham's hot-tempered spirit.

When the council summons Cranmer to hear the charges, Henry himself appears before it to defend him and to reproach the council. Whereas Henry did not intervene to prevent a corrupt Wolsey from persecuting an innocent Buckingham, he now does so to protect the persecuted Cranmer. Curiously, Henry refers to Cranmer's honesty, instead of his beliefs, heretical or otherwise.Footnote ¹³ That Cranmer is “true-hearted, and a soul / None better in [his] kingdom” (V.i.153–55) does not necessarily mean that Cranmer is true to the Roman Church. The difference between a true-hearted soul and a true believer emerges in an exchange between Gardiner and the king's secretary Thomas Cromwell: Gardiner questions Cromwell's soundness and accuses him of favoring a new sect, whereas Cromwell questions Gardiner's honesty (V.ii.114–16). Although Henry is well aware of the “grievous complaints” against Cranmer (V.i.98–99), he in effect takes them off the table. His rescue of Cranmer does not clear him of the charges, but decides the case on standards of character rather than belief. As the people distinguish between the true worth of Buckingham and the corruption of Wolsey, Henry distinguishes between Cranmer and Gardiner. Whereas Henry sees that Cranmer is true hearted, he recognizes that Gardiner has “a cruel nature and a bloody” (V.ii.163). And Henry has seen the difference between Wolsey's haughty ambition and Cranmer's loyalty and submission to his king (II.iv.233–38). Cranmer is potentially less divisive for English politics than Wolsey.

Shakespeare's portrayal of Gardiner's attack on Cranmer's belief shows the threat that his fanaticism holds for both religion and politics. Gardiner's harshness and arrogance evoke our sympathy for his intended victim, and suggest the playwright's approval of Henry's action. Shakespeare lets us see in Henry's intervention on Cranmer's behalf a relationship between politics and religion whereby politics judges on the basis of character rather than belief, and religion refrains from using politics for its own goals. Shakespeare's Henry claims to be “beholden” to Cranmer's “love and service,” and knows that he can count on his loyalty: “Do my lord of Canterbury / A shrewd turn,” Henry says, “and he's your friend forever” (V.ii.191 and 210–11). Such an accommodation requires a restraint on both sides. It requires a politics that can ask contending religious factions to “embrace and love” each other, as Henry commands Gardiner to do to Cranmer (V.ii.204), rather than to support the persecution of one side by the other. And it requires religion to comply, as Gardiner does.

That such an accommodation will last is doubtful, if only because of the cruelty Gardiner has expressed. Moreover, the play alludes to the “falling stars” at Anne's coronation (IV.i.54–55), mentions that Thomas More is the new chancellor of England (III.ii.393–94), and by numerous references to Katherine and Henry's daughter Mary reminds the audience of the hard times for England that followed Henry's reign. But as the gentleman says to the one who mentions the “falling stars” at Anne's coronation, “No more of that” (IV.i.55). By leaving the harsh future offstage, just as he added events in his portrayal of Katherine, Shakespeare presents an alternative possible future for England, in which the mutual support between politics and religion serves the best interests of both.

Before his council, Henry asks Cranmer to serve as godfather to his new daughter, and thus to strengthen religion's support of his new marriage. The last scene of the play is Elizabeth's christening and includes Cranmer's prophecy about Elizabeth's rule and the prosperity it will bring for England. The prophetic speech finds no precursor in Shakespeare's sources, although it seems an adaptation of what Holinshed writes in his own name—and therefore a description of what has happened rather than a prophetic utterance of what is to come. Holinshed says that from the time of her birth, “God himself undertaking the tuition of this young princesse, having predestined hir to the accomplishment of his divine purpose, she prospered under the lords hand as a chosen plant of his watering.”Footnote ¹⁴ Cranmer, in contrast, although acknowledging that Heaven bids him speak, says nothing about Heaven's education and nurturing of the English princess. He in effect suggests a separation of divine from human affairs. Cranmer in fact is silent about the education of the future queen, unlike Katherine whose last message urged Henry to provide their daughter's “good breeding” (cf. IV.ii.134–36 with V.iv.64–65). If the education of future rulers rests on the characters living at the end of the play, it seems, it lies in the hands of chance.

Elizabeth will become “a pattern to all princes living with her / And all that shall succeed,” Cranmer proclaims. She will not only have a “pure soul,” but will be both “loved and feared.” She will bring material prosperity and peace and contentment, for “in her days every man shall eat in safety / Under his own vine,” and “sing / The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours.” So too under her reign, “God shall be truly known, and those about her shall read the perfect ways of honour / And by those claim their greatness, not by blood” (V.iv.14–38). The pattern for princes that Cranmer attributes to Elizabeth combines earthly and heavenly goods that Wolsey sundered (e.g., IV.ii.29–30), while recognizing that the claim to greatness lies in character and deeds (“the perfect ways of honor') rather than in noble birth. The distinction of true worth that made Buckingham superior to his base accusers will be recognized by Elizabeth and her successors.

Shakespeare gives no indication that Elizabeth (or her successor James I) comes close to this “pattern” that Cranmer predicts. His conversion of Holinshed's description into a prediction by Cranmer avoids the question of its truth. Although England's future at the end of the play is not as happy as Cranmer wishes, Shakespeare himself has held up a pattern in his portrayal of Katherine. It is she to whom the epilogue refers, shortly after Cranmer's prophecy about Elizabeth, when it states on behalf of the playwright that “all the expected good w' are like to hear / For this play at this time, is only in / The merciful construction of good women, / For such a one we show'd 'em.” If the women in the audience approve, then “within a while / All the best men are ours” (epilogue, 8–13). Shakespeare looks back (to Katherine), at the same time as characters in the play look forward. If there is to be any lasting reform of English life, with resolution of the religious conflict that Shakespeare dramatizes especially in the last act of the play, it must go deeper than Henry's simply commanding love between Gardiner and Cranmer. Insofar as Shakespeare's play provides models of characters and deeds, the poet himself contributes to the task of reformation. Those models include a range of Christian ones, from the noble Buckingham to the meek and humble Cranmer, from the gentle but insistent Katherine to the Elizabeth of Cranmer's prophecy, who recognizes greatness not by birth but by the ways of honor.

Making Room for the People in the Play

Shakespeare includes a scene late in his play, which is not necessary for the plot, in which a porter and his man attempt to disperse an unruly crowd who have come to watch Elizabeth's baptism. The porter disparages the crowd as “rascals” and “rude slaves” who cannot distinguish between the court and the place where bears and bulls are baited (V.iii.1–2). He is reminded of “the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitten apples” (V.iii.59–65). The porter and his man break the dramatic illusion of the play when they address members of the play's audience as if they were among the unruly crowd in the play. They call out to a “great fellow” to “stand close up,” and to another to “get up o' th' rail” (V.iii.86–89).Footnote ¹⁵ Shakespeare here connects the crowd that appears in the play with the audience that watches the play.

Shakespeare of course has a different audience in mind for the very play in which the porter expresses his contempt for the playhouse. The prologue addresses “gentle hearers” (prologue, 17) rather than rowdy youths. At least, Shakespeare hopes they are gentle hearers, or perhaps that they become so by watching his play. He also includes in his play other characterizations of the people than the porter's. Buckingham, as we have seen, addresses the “good people” who have come to offer their pity and support, asking them to pray for his soul as well as to remember “how he fell” when they tell sad tales (II.i.135–36). The gentlemen who speak of Buckingham's trial meet again in the fourth act at the time of Anne Bullen's coronation (IV.i.1–117; II.i.1–55 and 137–69). They remind themselves of their first meeting: “that time offer'd sorrow, / This, general joy” (IV.i.6–7). Positive celebrations of public life have a place in Shakespeare's England. On this happier occasion, one of the gentlemen reports, “the citizens” show “in full their royal minds” in the general joy that prevails (IV.i.6–7). The gentlemen do not share the porter's view of the people. “Royal minds” refers to the royal objects that the people look upon, but also suggests minds that partake of royalty, as if the people are royal in virtue of their being able to “take in” and appreciate their objects. This indeed seems to be what the gentleman means, for the people have shown their royal minds “In celebration of this day with shows, / Pageants and sights of honor.” “Let them their rights,” he says, for “they are ever forward” in the celebration (IV.i.9–11). The gentleman may be simply giving the people their due, rather than alluding to any natural rights they possess, but like others they must be given their due.Footnote ¹⁶

Even the raucous crowd at the christening must be given its due. If the “rude rascals” are in search of “cake and ale,” as the porter says (V.iii.9–10), they have come to share in the bounty of the realm. When the porter foresees “a fry of fornication” “at the door” with the result that “this one christening will beget a thousand” (V.iii.1–37), his view of the fertility the royal infant betokens for England foreshadows and mocks Cranmer's prophecy. It is almost as if the denizens of the Boarshead Tavern have come to claim a place alongside the nobility. The porter's man gives his master a somewhat Falstaffian account of the numbers he faced in trying to control the crowd (V.iii.50–58; Henry IV, Part I, II.iv.155–65 and V.iv.118), when he aimed a blow at a boisterous fellow and hit instead “a haberdasher's wife of small wit.” Calling for “clubs,” the woman blames the porter's man for “kindling such a combustion in the state” (V.iii.39–59). The people, rude though they may be, are provoked to defend a woman's honor. Their disturbance is of less moment than the “uproar” and even “loud rebellion” that Wolsey's heavy taxation provokes (I.ii.29 and 36) or the religious “commotions” and “uproars” in Germany that “taint” “the whole state” that Gardiner mentions (V.ii.62–64). With the entrance of the chamberlain, there are suggestions of a staged battle to come. But there are no staged battles in Henry VIII. The people, after all, have come out, not for rebellion, and not even for a bear baiting or an execution. They come to celebrate a royal christening. The play simply switches to court where the nobles celebrate the happy day, and we hear Cranmer's prophecy about Elizabeth's rule.

The epilogue claims to rely on “the merciful construction” of the good women in the audience, as we have seen, in expectation that “in a while” the best men will be “ours; for 'tis ill hap, / If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap (epilogue 10–15). If Katherine met mixed success in commanding Henry, the women might be able to command the men at the theater, of course with Shakespeare's help. The playwright wishes his audience would celebrate his play, as the people celebrate Elizabeth's christening within the play. Shakespeare like Cranmer looks to the future, but by effecting rather than predicting, and by presenting elements of good governance as models.

Shakespeare's Christian Vision and Good Governance

The elements of good governance include Christian ones, such as forgiveness (Buckingham's), repentance (Wolsey's), and meekness (Cranmer's). Buckingham's forgiveness of his enemies both moderates his hot-headed spirit and manifests his own noble endurance, and makes him a better fit for political life than were many of the warring English nobles of Shakespeare's earlier history plays. Buckingham, however, shows a resignation and distrust of the world. Wolsey's repentance for his wrongdoing allows him to die with hope of heaven but it similarly betokens a resignation about this life, and leaves the corrections of his misdeeds to others (III.ii.345–46). Cranmer's meekness and humility free him from political ambitions such as Wolsey's and allow him to better serve his king, but he cannot defend himself against his foes, about whose wrongdoing he is determined to remain silent. He must rely on the king for protection. Christian forgiveness, repentance, and meekness contribute to a good political community, but in each case require an understanding or will that these characters lack.

Shakespeare's Katherine more clearly attempts to effect goodness in the world, as when she insists that Wolsey himself act with charity (I.ii.142–43), but also in her intercessions at court early in the play and in her petition to Henry at the end. Katherine's efforts thus continue to the last. Although Shakespeare suggests she is deserving of heavenly happiness through the visions he attributes to her, she shows little of Buckingham's and Wolsey's resignation about earthly life. While we see her immediate success against Wolsey in regard to his oppressive taxes on the people, if she has any long-term effect on England it will occur primarily through Shakespeare's play.

The elements of good governance that emerge in Henry VIII include the potential of law and judicial procedure to check abuse, even if that potential fails in specific cases at issue in the play. These cases include Buckingham's trial for treason, the court that first assembles to pronounce on the legitimacy of Katherine's marriage to Henry, and Cranmer's trial before the king's council, which Henry finds it necessary to forestall. Most important, good governance requires protecting religious belief from persecution, as Henry's intervention effects in the trial of Cranmer, while assigning it a supportive role in public life, as Henry does in the public spectacle of his daughter's christening. Good governance also acknowledges the royal minds of the people, who are capable of loving virtue, as they do Buckingham's, and hate vice, as they do Wolsey's. Although neither lawful procedures nor giving the people their due are singularly Christian, Shakespeare finds support in Christianity for both. The considerations that heaven gives to virtue rather than to birth—and which are reflected in the people's own preferences—are not compensations for the tribulations of this life but models of justice, whether it be in treating the accused with fairness or giving the people their due. The play's epilogue speaks for Shakespeare, when it concludes that it will be “ill hap” for England if all, or at least many, do not “in a while” come around.