Henry VIII

by Shakespeare

First published 1623

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3.5(10,124)

Henry VIII’s court is reshaped by the fall of powerful favourites, the king’s attempt to end his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and the rise of Anne Boleyn. Cardinal Wolsey dominates the early action but loses royal confidence when his political and ecclesiastical manoeuvres fail.

The later scenes turn toward Thomas Cranmer, religious change and the birth of the future Elizabeth I. Shakespeare and John Fletcher present Tudor politics as a sequence of spectacular rises and falls, balancing court ceremony with the instability created when marriage, succession and church authority become matters of state.