Wolsey and was put into prison by the latter. Consequently when he wrote his history of England, he gave an unfavorable account of Wolsey and imputed base motives for his actions. This account Holinshed followed. But toward the end of his account he ran into the life of Wolsey written by George Cavendish, who had been Wolsey's gentleman usher. Naturally to Cavendish Wolsey was ideal magnificence personified. Consequently when Holinshed grafted Cavendish's opinion of Wolsey's character upon the narrative of Polydore Vergil it formed an unexpected conclusion. In one scene of the play the two points of view are brought into sharp contrast. In Act IV, scene ii, Katharine is giving vent to ideas of Polydore Vergil, whereas Griffith replies by talking Cavendish.
(3) In any drama the scenes should have an organic relation, the succeeding scene should develop from those preceding, until in the last act the audience perceives the drama as a unified whole. That is far from the case here. The leading personage of the first part is Buckingham; then Wolsey takes the stage, then Katharine, and we end with Cranmer and the christening of Elizabeth. Thus the drama is not a drama at all; it is a series of almost unrelated scenes, describing events that occurred in the reign of Henry VIII, and with him as vaguely felt center. This again is due to the writers' dependence upon Holinshed. He had no philosophical conception of the reign, and they did little more than dramatize selected scenes as they came to them. According to the statements in the Prologue they regarded this dependence as a virtue. That is the obvious meaning of the line
'To make that only true we now intend,'
and the emphasis upon truth in line 9. In other words, they felt that they were following Holinshed as carefully as possible.
