Henry VIII

• A pageant-play covering the early reign of Henry VIII — more spectacle than drama, more tableau than story • The fall of Buckingham: accused of treason by his own surveyor, tried, and executed. He goes nobly • Cardinal Wolsey at the height of his power — arrogant, magnificent, controlling king and court • Henry sees Anne Boleyn (Bullen) at a masque. Attraction. The wheels begin turning toward divorce from Katherine of Aragon • Katherine's trial: she refuses to accept Wolsey's authority. Her defense speech is dignified, passionate, and historically powerful • Wolsey's fall: his private letters (revealing his disloyalty) are accidentally delivered to the king. He's stripped of everything • Wolsey's farewell: "Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies" • Katherine fades and dies — a vision of angels comforts her. One of Shakespeare's most moving death scenes • Anne Boleyn is crowned. The baby Elizabeth is christened. Cranmer prophesies her glorious reign • The play ends with Elizabeth's baptism — a tribute to the monarch who made Shakespeare's career possible • Notable for what it DOESN'T show: no execution of Anne Boleyn, no break with Rome, no Reformation violence