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The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII. Edited by C. Knox Pooler

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The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VIII. Edited by C. Knox Pooler THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE GENERAL EDITOR: W. J. CRAIG 1899-1906: R. H. CASE, 1909 THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF KING HENRY VIII THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF KING HENRY VIII EDITED BY C. KNOX POOLER I METHUEN AND CO. 36 ESSEX STREET: STRAND LONDON First Published in igis CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ......... vii The Famous History of the Life of King Henry VHI. i Appendix 169 ' — — INTRODUCTION In 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, " The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight " with the running title " The Life of King Henry the Eight " appeared as the last of the Histories in Hemingeand Condell's edition (the First Folio) of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. So far as we know, it had not previously been published or in any way associated with Shakespeare's name. It has, however, been traced by Tyrwhitt to Shake- speare's theatre and fellow-actors, if it is, as he suggested, the play during the representation of which the Globe Theatre was burnt to the ground on the 29th of June, 161 3. The evidence is as follows : A letter fro7n Thomas Lorkin to Sir Thomas Puckering (Harl. MS. 7002, fo. 268) :— " London this last of June 161 3. " No longer since then yesterday, while Bourbege his companie were acting at ye Globe the play of Hen. 8, and there shooting of certayne chambers in way of triumph ; the fire catch'd & fastened upon the thatch of y^ house and there burned so furiously as it consumed the whole house & all in lesse than two houres (the people having enough to doe ' to save , themselves). Letter from Sir Henry Wotton to his nephew, Sir Edmund Bacon (Reliquiae Wottoniae, 1685, pp. 425-6): " JNow, to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what hath happened this week at the Banks side. The King's Players had a new Play, called All is true, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Zth, which was set forth with many extraordinary Circum- stances of Pomp and Majesty, even to the matting of the vii — : ^ viii KING HENKY VIII Stage ; the Knights of the Order, with their Georges and Garter, the Guards with their embroidered Coats, and the like : sufficient in truth within a while to make Greatness very- familiar, if not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a Masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's House, and certain Cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the Paper, or other stuff, wherewith one of them was stopped did light on the Thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoak, and their Eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. " This was the fatal period of that virtuous Fabrique ; wherein yet nothing did perish but a few forsaken Cloaks ; only one Man had his Breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with Bottle-Ale." Chambeidain s letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, 8 th of July, 1 613 (Winwood's Memorials, iii. 469): " But the burning of the Globe a Playhouse on the Bankside on St. Peter's Day cannot escape you ; which fell out by a peale of Chambers (that I know not upon what occasion were to be used in the play,) the Tampin or Stopple of one of them lighting in the Thatch that covered the House, burn'd it to the Ground in less than two Hours, with a fair Dwelling-house adjoyning ; and it was a great Marvaile and fair Grace of God that the People had so little Harm, having but two narrow Doors to get out." Edmund Howes, Continuation of Stows Chronicle — " Also upon S. Peter's day last, the play-house or Theater called the Globe, upon the Banckside neere London, by negli- gent discharging of a peale of ordinance, close to the south side thereof, the Thatch tooke fier & the wind sodainly dis- perst ye flame round about, & in a very short space y^ whole building was quite consumed, & no man hurt : the house being filled with people, to behold the play, viz. of Henry the 8. And the next spring it was new builded in far fairer manner than before." Ben Jonson, An Execration upon Vulcan {Underwoods LXII.):— INTRODUCTION ix They made a Vulcan of a sheaf of reeds . But O those reeds ! thy mere disdain of them Made thee beget that cruel stratagem, Which some are pleased to style but thy mad prank, Against the Globe, the glory of the Bank ; Which, though it were the fort of the whole parish. Flanked with a ditch, and forced out of a marish, I saw with two poor chambers taken in. And razed ; ere thought could urge this might have been ! See the World's ruins ! nothing but the piles Left, and wit since to cover it with tiles. The date of this passage is unknown, but it must have been later than the spring of 1614 when the Globe was re- built. A Son7iett upon the pittiftill burneing of the Globe Playhouse in Londo7i. Now sitt the downe, Melpomene, Wrapt in a sea-cole robe ; And tell the dolefull tragedie, That late was played at Globe : For noe man that can singe and saye, Was scard [.-^ scarred or xipojil on St. Peter's daye. Oh sorrow, pittifull sorrow, and yett all this is true. All yo^ that please to understand, Come listen to my storye ; To see Death with his rakeing brande, Mongst such an auditorye : Regarding neither Cardinall's might, Nor yet the rugged face of Henry the eight. Oh sorrow &c. This fearfull fire beganne above, A wonder strange and true ; And to the stage-howse did remove As round as Taylor's clewe ; And burnt [? bunied] downe both beam and snagge, And did not spare the silken flagge. Oh sorrow &c. Out runne the Knights, cut runne the Lords, And there was great adoe ; Some lost their hatts, and some their swords ; Then out runne Burbidge too ; The reprobates thoughe druncke on munday, Pray'd for the Foole and Henry Condye. Oh sorrow &c. X KING HENRY VIII The perry wiggs and drumme-heads frye. Like to a butter firkin ; A wofull burncing did betide To many a good buffe jerkin : Then with swolne Hpps, like druncken Flemmings, Distressed stood old stuttering Heminges. Oh sorrow &c. There are three stanzas more, needlessly coarse. The whole was published as " copied from an old manuscript volume of poems," in The Gentleman s Magazine, Feb. 1816 (vol. ^6, pt. i. p. 1 14). The ballad seems genuine, though in the omitted stanzas there are a few points which look like the work of a literary forger anxious to use up all his materials. The fact that the fire began aloft might have been learnt from Howes and others ; the advice to use tiles next time instead of thatch might have been suggested by Ben Jonson's statement that this was done, and the expedient for extinguishing a fire within reach, by Wotton's facetious allusion to bottle-ale. On the other hand, a forger is not likely to have damaged his metre by the contracted forms, scard (st. i.) and burnt (st. iii.). The last line of stanza ii. seems to have come from some one with no ear and a bad memory ; originally it may have run : "Nor rugged face of Henry eight." Lastly, the animus against the players, and the burlesque (in the o'erword) of the Prologue and of the title All is True, are best attributed to a contemporary. If this last reason is of as much weight as I believe, we may infer that the Prologue itself dates at least from the night of the fire. On the whole it seems natural to conclude that the play acted on the 29th of June was essentially the same as that published in the folio of 1623. The subject, the magnificence of presentation, the incident of the masque, are the same in both, and both were in the possession of the same Company. Wotton indeed says that the title was All is True, but alterna- tive titles were not uncommon, and in this case some such alter- native title seems necessary to justify or explain the allusions to truth in the Prologue, and to give point to the words "all this is true " in the ballad. Gifford argued that a play written in 1 60 1 —the date originally assigned by Malone—could not INTHODUCTION xi be called new in 1613, and asks who would have recognised {sic). He7iry VIII. under the name of All is Truth But Malone was probably in error in dating the play so early as 1 601 or even 1603, his later conjecture, and the title Ile^iry VIII. is that given by Lorkins who wrote the day after the fire and by Howes whose preface to his Continuation of Stow's Chronicle is dated 1614. But it may be doubted whether Wotton's expression '* a new play " must mean that it had never been acted before. To the argument that the accident which caused the fire is more likely to happen at a first per- formance than when the play had been frequently on the stage, it might be answered that in that case such an accident was more likely to occur at a rehearsal than at a performance, and that the carelessness of routine is quite as dangerous as inexperience.
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