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II. THE HISTORICAL SOURCES OF THE PLAY.

The historical authorities followed by the authors in the first four acts of the play were Edward Hall's "Union of the

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Families of Lancaster and York," the first edition of which appeared in 1548, and Raphael Holinshed's "Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland," published in 1577. These writers had copied largely from George Cavendish's "Life of Cardinal Wolsey," of which there were many manuscript copies in Shakespeare's day, though the work was not printed until 1641. For the fifth act he took his materials from John Fox's "Acts and Monuments of the Church," published in 1563.

In these books the poets found many details which they put into dramatic form with very slight change of language, as will be seen from the illustrations given in our Notes. The action of the play includes events scattered through a period of about twenty-three years, or from 1520 to 1543, and the events are not always given in their chronological order. Thus the reversal of the decree for taxing the commons (1525) and the examination of Buckingham's surveyor (1521) are in one scene; the banquet scene (1526) precedes that of Buckingham's execution, and in the latter scene we find mention of Henry's scruples concerning his marriage (1527) and of the arrival of Campeggio (1529); the scene in which Anne is made Marchioness of Pembroke (1532) precedes that of the trial of the queen (1529); the death of Wolsey (1530) is announced to Katherine in the scene in which she dies (1536); in the same scene in which the birth of Elizabeth (1533) is announced to the king, he converses with Cranmer about the charge of heresy (1543); and in the scene in which Cranmer is accused before the council (1543), Henry asks him to be godfather at the baptism of Elizabeth (1533). Even if we make no account of the introduction of the charges against Cranmer (1543), the action of the play will cover a period of some sixteen years, from the return of the English Court from the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, to the death of Katherine in 1536.

To have a just idea of the accuracy and beauty of this his torical portrait, we ought to bring immediately before us those circumstances of Katherine's life and times, and those parts of her character, which belong to a period previous to the opening of the play. We shall then be better able to appre ciate the skill with which Shakespeare has applied the mate rials before him.

*We know of no better Historical Introduction to the play than this admirable paper, which we therefore give almost entire-omitting merely a paragraph devoted to a comparison of the characters of Katherine and of Hermione in The Winter's Tale.

Katherine of Arragon, the fourth and youngest daughter of Ferdinand, king of Arragon, and Isabella of Castile, was born at Alcala, whither her mother had retired to winter after one of the most terrible campaigns of the Moorish war—that of 1485.

Katherine had derived from nature no dazzling qualities of mind, and no striking advantages of person. She inherited a tincture of Queen Isabella's haughtiness and obstinacy of temper, but neither her beauty nor her splendid talents. Her education, under the direction of her extraordinary mother, had implanted in her mind the most austere principles of virtue, the highest ideas of female decorum, the most narrow and bigoted attachment to the forms of religion, and that excessive pride of birth and rank which distinguished so particularly her family and her nation. In other respects, her understanding was strong and her judgment clear. The natural turn of her mind was simple, serious, and domestic, and all the impulses of her heart kindly and benevolent. Such was Katherine; such, at least, she appears on a reference to the chronicles of her times, and particularly from her own letters, and the papers written or dictated by herself which relate to her divorce; all of which are distinguished by the same artless simplicity of style, the same quiet good sense, the same resolute yet gentle spirit and fervent piety.

When five years old, Katherine was solemnly affianced to Arthur, prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII.; and In the year 1501 she landed in England, after narrowly escaping shipwreck on the southern coast, from which every adverse wind conspired to drive her. She was received in London with great honour, and immediately on her arrival united to the young prince. He was then fifteen, and Katherine in her seventeenth year.

Arthur, as it is well known, survived his marriage only five months; and the reluctance of Henry VII. to refund the splendid dowry of the Infanta, and forego the advantages of

an alliance with the most powerful prince of Europe, suggest ed the idea of uniting Katherine to his second son Henry; after some hesitation a dispensation was procured from the pope, and she was betrothed to Henry in her eighteenth year. The prince, who was then only twelve years old, resisted as far as he was able to do so, and appears to have really felt a degree of horror at the idea of marrying his brother's widow. Nor was the mind of King Henry at rest; as his health declined, his conscience reproached him with the equivocal nature of the union into which he had forced his son, and the vile motives of avarice and expediency which had governed him on this occasion. A short time previous to his death he dissolved the engagement, and even caused Henry to sign a paper in which he solemnly renounced all idea of a future union with the Infanta. It is observable that Henry signed this paper with reluctance, and that Katherine, instead of being sent back to her own country, still remained in England.

It appears that Henry, who was now about seventeen, had become interested for Katherine, who was gentle and amiable. The difference of years was rather a circumstance in her favor; for Henry was just at that age when a youth is most likely to be captivated by a woman older than himself: and no sooner was he required to renounce her than the interest she had gradually gained in his affections became, by opposition, a strong passion. Immediately after his father's death he declared his resolution to take for his wife the Lady Katherine of Spain, and none other; and when the matter was discussed in council, it was urged that, besides the many advantages of the match in a political point of view, she had given so "much proof of virtue and sweetness of condition as they knew not where to parallel her." About six weeks after his accession, June 3, 1509, the marriage was celebrated with truly royal splendour, Henry being then eighteen and Katherine in her twenty-fourth year.