Appendix A
Sources of the Play
The sources of Henry VIII are Holinshed's Chronicle for the first four acts and the last scene of the fifth act, and Foxe's Book of Martyrs for the first four scenes of the fifth act. Mr. Chambers[1] posits an earlier version of the play called by the name of Buckingham. This does not seem probable because Holinshed is not the 'source' in the rather vague sense applicable to the other plays. Here much of the play is merely Holinshed's scenes dramatized and his words put into blank verse. A fair illustration is the speech of the First Gentleman, II. ii. 149–153.
Yes, but it held not;
For when the king once heard it, out of anger
He sent command to the lord mayor straight
To stop the rumour, and allay those tongues
That durst disperse it.
Compare this passage with Holinshed:
'The king was offended with those tales, and sent for Sir Thomas Seimor maior of the citie of London, secretlie charging him to see that the people ceased from such talke.'
But as the play covers a period of twenty-four years, over a hundred folio pages in Holinshed, the playwrights selected passages to dramatize. From this condition three criticisms follow:
(1) The chronology is hopelessly confused, as the action is compressed into six or seven days. This confusion is partly unavoidable; the changes which occur during a quarter of a century must be ignored. The characters of the first act would have actually
- ↑ E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 2, p. 202.
