Scene III. 78. a gem:—Probably the carbuncle, which was supposed by our ancestors to have intrinsic light, and to shine in the dark. Any other gem may reflect light, but cannot give it. Thus in a palace described in Amadis de Gaule, 1619: "In the roofe of a chamber hung two lampes of gold, at the bottomes whereof were enchafed two carbuncles, which gave so bright a splendour round about the roome, that there was no neede of any other light." 66 97, 98. honour's train, etc.:-" Meaning, of course," says Hudson, that still ampler honours are forthcoming to her; or that the banquet will outsweeten the foretaste." 103. salute my blood:-Compare with Shakespeare's similar phrase in Sonnets, CXXI., 5, 6:— "For why should others' false adulterate eyes Scene IV. [Canterbury.] At this time, June 21, 1529, the Archbishop of Canterbury was William Warham, who died in August, 1532, and was succeeded by Cranmer the following March. This long stage direction from the Folio, is in most of its particulars according to the actual event. The "two priests, bearing each a silver cross," and the "two gentlemen bearing two great silver pillars," were parts of Wolsey's official pomp and circumstance; the one being symbolic of his office as Archbishop of York, the other of his authority as Cardinal Legate. 12. [The Queen goes about the court, etc.] "Because," says Cavendish," she could not come directly to the King for the distance which severed them, she took pain to go about unto the King, kneeling down at his feet." 69. To you I speak:-The acting of Mrs. Siddons has been much celebrated as yielding an apt and pregnant commentary on this passage. The effect, it would seem, must have been fine; but perhaps the thing savours overmuch of forcing the Poet to express another's thoughts. It is thus described by Mr. Terry: Vexed to the uttermost by the artifices with which her ruin is prosecuted, and touched with indignation at the meanness and injustice of the proceeding, she interrupts Campeius, with the intention of accusing Wolsey, and of refusing him for her judge. 66 Campeius, who had been urging immediate trial, imagines it addressed to him, and comes forward as if to answer. Here Mrs. Siddons exhibited one of those unequalled pieces of acting, by which she assists the barrenness of the text, and fills up the meaning of the scene. Those who have seen it will never forget it; but to those who have not, we feel it impossible to describe the majestic self-correction of the petulance and vexation which, in her perturbed state of mind, she feels at the misapprehension of Campeius, and the intelligent expression of countenance and gracious dignity of gesture, with which she intimates to him his mistake. And no language can convey a picture of her immediate reassumption of the fulness of majesty, when she turns round to Wolsey, and exclaims, 'To you I speak!' Her form seemed to expand, and her eyes to burn beyond human." 116, 117. You tender more, etc. :-So in Holinshed: "He was the hautiest man in all his proceedings alive, having more respect to the honour of his person, than he had to his spirituall profession, wherein should be shewed all meeknes, humilitie, and charitie." 166. I speak my good lord cardinal to this point:-The King, having first addressed Wolsey, breaks off; and declares upon his honour to the whole court, that he speaks the cardinal's sentiments upon the point in question. 239. Prithee, return:—The King, be it observed, is here merely thinking aloud. Cranmer was at that time absent on a foreign embassy. ACT THIRD. Scene I. 22, 23. Being churchmen they should be virtuous, and every business they undertake as righteous as their sacred office: but all hoods make not monks. In allusion to the Latin proverb, Cucullus non facit monachum, to which Chaucer also alludes: 51-53. The construction is, "I am sorry my integrity, and service to his majesty and you, should breed so deep suspicion." Edwards made a transposition of the lines, thus: LIFE OF KING HENRY VIII. "I am sorry my integrity should breed So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant, Notes Hudson (Harvard ed.) so transposes them. White leaves them in the original order, with the line, And service to his majesty and you in parenthesis. 102. The more shame for ye :-If I mistake you, it is by your fault, not mine; for I thought you good. 164. grow as terrible as storms:-It was one of the charges brought against Lord Essex, that, in a letter written during his retirement in 1598 to the lord keeper, he had said, "There is no tempest to the passionate indignation of a prince." Scene II. 42. married:—The date commonly assigned for the marriage of Henry and Anne is November 14, 1532; at which time they set sail together from Calais, the King having been on a visit to his royal brother of France. Lingard, following Godwin, Stowe, and Cranmer, says they were privately married the 25th of January, 1533, and that the former date was assigned in order to afford the proper space between their marriage and the birth of Elizabeth, which latter event took place the 7th of September following. The marriage was to have been kept secret till May; but the circumstances forced a public acknowledgment of it early in April. 120-128. This incident, in its application to Wolsey, is a fiction: he made no such mistake; but another person having once done so, he took occasion thereby to ruin him. The Poet was judicious in making Wolsey's fall turn upon a mistake which in his hands had proved so fatal to another. The story is told by Holinshed of Thomas Ruthall, Bishop of Durham, who was accounted the richest subject in the realm; and who, having by the King's order written a book setting forth the whole estate of the kingdom, had it bound up in the same style as one before written, setting forth his own private affairs. At the proper time the King sent Wolsey to get the book, and the bishop gave him the wrong one. cardinall, having the booke, went foorthwith to the King, delivered it into his hands, and breefelie informed him of the contents thereof; putting further into his head, that if at anie time he were destitute of a masse of monie, he should not need to seeke further 171 "The Notes FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE than to the cofers of the bishop. Of all which when the bishop had intelligence, he was stricken with such greefe, that he shortlie ended his life in the yeare 1523." 140. Spiritual leisure is leisure for spiritual exercises. The King seems biting him with irony; as if his leisure were so filled up with spiritual concerns that he could not spare any of it for worldly affairs. 141. Keep your earthly audit “ means, apparently," says Hudson, 'look after your temporal interests, or audit, that is verify, your secular accounts." 184-190. The interpretation seems to be: "Besides your bond of duty as a loyal and obedient servant, you owe a particular devotion to me as your special benefactor." 231. my Lord of Winchester's :-Shakespeare forgot that Wolsey was himself bishop of Winchester, having succeeded Bishop Fox in 1528, holding the see in commendam. Esher was one of the episcopal palaces belonging to that see. 256. Buckingham, my father-in-law:-The Poet continues the same persons Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey through the play. Here the earl is the same who had married Buckingham's daughter, and had been shifted off out of the way, when that great nobleman was to be struck at. In fact, however, he who, at the beginning of the play, 1521, was earl, became duke in 1525. At the time of this scene the Earl of Surrey was the much-accomplished Henry Howard, son of the former, born in 1520; a man of fine genius and heroic spirit, afterwards distinguished alike in poetry and in arms, and who, on the mere strength of royal suspicion, was sent to the block in 1547. 314. Ego et Rex meus:-These several charges are taken almost literally from Holinshed, where the second item reads thus: "In all writings which he wrote to Rome, or anie other forren prince, he wrote Ego et rex meus, I and my king; as who would saie that the King were his servant." In the Latin idiom, however, such was the order prescribed by modesty itself. And, in fact, the charge against Wolsey, as given from the records by Lord Herbert, was not that he set himself above or before the King, but that he spoke of himself along with him. 325. Your holy hat, etc.:-This was one of the articles exhibited against Wolsey, but rather with a view to swell the catalogue than from any serious cause of accusation; inasmuch as the Archbishops Cranmer, Bainbridge, and Warham were indulged with the same privilege. 172 350 et seq. "In Henry VIII.," says Emerson, "I think I see plainly the cropping out of the original work on which his [Shakespeare's] own finer stratum was laid. The first play was written by a superior, thoughtful man, with a vicious ear. I can mark his lines, and know well their cadence. See Wolsey's soliloquy, and the following scene with Cromwell, where, instead of the metre of Shakespeare, whose secret is that the thought constructs the tune, so that reading for the sense will bring out the rhythm— here the lines are constructed on a given tune, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit eloquence." smiles:-The number of per 411, 412. the noble troops sons who composed Cardinal Wolsey's household, according to the authentic copy of Cavendish, was five hundred. Cavendish's work, though written soon after the death of Wolsey, was not printed till 1641, and then in a most unfaithful and garbled manner, the object of the publication having been to render Laud odious, by showing how far Church power had been extended by Wolsey, and how dangerous that prelate was, who, in the opinion of many, followed his example. In that spurious copy we read that the number of his household was eight hundred persons. In other MSS. and in Dr. Wordsworth's edition, we find it stated at one hundred and eighty persons. ACT FOURTH. Scene I. 66 16. coronation :-" The play," in the opinion of Emerson, contains through all its length unmistakable traits of Shakespeare's hand, and some passages, as the account of the coronation, are like autographs." 49. The Cinque-ports (i.e., the five ports) were Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, and Hythe. Rye and Winchelsea were subsequently added. For furnishing many warships the original five received important privileges. According to Hall, "the Cinque-ports claimed to bear the canopy over the Queen's head, the day of the coronation." 88. crown:-The coronation of Anne took place June 1, 1533; the divorcement of Katharine having been formally pronounced the 17th of May. |