At the urging of a Shakespearean friend (Dr. Liam Daley–a Shakespeare scholar, not actually one of his characters), I’ve recently completed the History Cycle–given the marketable but misleading name “The War of the Roses” by Goodreads:

• Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John (1595-97)
• Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Richard the Second (1595)
• Shakespeare, The History of Henry the Fourth, Part 1 (1596-97)
• Shakespeare, The History of Henry the Fourth, Part 2 (1597-98)
• Shakespeare, The Life of Henry the Fifth (1599)
• Shakespeare, The First Part of Henry the Sixth (1591)
• Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henry the Sixth (1591)
• Shakespeare, The Third Part of Henry the Sixth (1591)
• Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Richard the Third (1592-94)
• Shakespeare and John Fletcher, The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth (1613)

The true History Cycle includes the central 8 books (R2, 1H4, 2H4, H5, 1H6, 2H6, 3H6, R3), there is a spurious Edward III play, and the dates are my own, but that’s the list I have finally finished off. I’d like to talk about my broader experience after I source and read the spurious The Raigne of King Edward the Third (1596), but I wanted to leave a brief note about H8.

Growing up, the only thing I knew about Henry VIII (the play) was that, within the first days of its public run, one of the dramatic effects–cannon fire–burned the Globe to the ground in 1613. I have read this strange play and have some thoughts that are not terribly linear.

Henry VIII was an incongruous read for me, and certainly my first time encountering any of this material in Shakespeare. H8 lacks the atmosphere and grandeur of the History Cycle, and even King John was far more vivid and poetic. Other than a plot that is less linear than these notes, my three interlocking complaints come down to characters, storytelling, and style.

H8 has a dizzying array of characters and an inordinate amount of stage instruction. It relies on the audience’s knowledge of the history, which I lack in some parts. I know the outline, but I get lost in all the lords and bishops, who come in successive waves as their heads get separated from their shoulders or the playwrights need a new talkie scene explaining what’s going on.

I’ve read a good amount of history, as well as Alison Weir’s historical pieces and Margaret George’s The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers, so I should remember all my lords and bishops … but it is not my strong suit, even when Googling online resources. Ultimately, I had DeepSeek make a list for me (see the bottom of your screen). It needs closer scrutiny, but it generally works well. Unfortunately, I only gave in and made it during Act V–too late to be of much help. To make matters worse, I did not have a paper copy: my Kindle copy just gave a 3/4-letter character name, like King, Kath, Wols, Cran, Cam, Den, Lov. Ugh. So, a thank you to online nerds for the late-night reading help.

Some of the prose jarred me. Partly, my Kindle was giving me an American version that had been cleaned up as much as possible, potentially disrupting the cadence. However, I’m certain this is not among the best plays of English literature. Scholars propose that the play was co-written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher, one of The King’s Men. There are stylistic shifts, certainly. While I prefer Shakespeare‘s traditional tragedic and historical blank verse speeches, Katherine is brilliant as she is demoted from Queen to Dowager Princess, and the King’s key advisor, Cardinal Wolsey, has a series of downfall speeches that are almost legendary in their humanizing effects. Pretty much anyone going to their deathbed or soliloquizing queens is fluent and vivid in this play.

The Court for the Trial of Queen Katharine by George Henry Harlow, 1817

By contrast, a lot of the play is dull and straightforward. This feature has the advantage of being understandable, I suppose, as it lacks complex metaphor and Shakespeare‘s playful mixing of new words. I haven’t counted myself, but I would bet it is very thin on hapax legomena (unique words in Shakespeare‘s corpus). More than this, though, is a puzzling irony: This is the play with the most nonspeaking actions, costumes, parades, musicians, sound effects, and extras; still, it has a massive amount of “tell” rather than “show.” Random characters are always meeting on stage to explain what has happened, will happen, or might have happened in a universe parallel to Shakespeare’s own.

And yet, I was intrigued by the way that the poets played with past and present.

There is much to be said about the religious background. As the play becomes public, the Authorized Version has just appeared: King James’ mum was a Roman Catholic, Queen Elizabeth negotiated the Anglican settlement over decades, and I’m pretty sure that this is the only Shakespeare play that mentions Cranmer’s prayer book. The setting of the play, though, is 80 years earlier, in the heat of Reformation debates and within the power struggles of the court, the commons, and the clergy. Future Queen Elizabeth is christened at the end of the play, and prophesied to be the virgin saviour of England. It is a nice touch, a decade after she died.

The royal past and present were still more complex. Henry VII emerges as a late-but-confident hero in Richard III, but Shakespeare’s treatment of him is thin. Henry VIII’s elder brother, Arthur, was H7’s heir. He died before his father, but after marrying Katherine of Aragon–reputedly before the marriage was consummated. To shore up his claim, a young Henry VIII married Katherine, but they had no sons and only one surviving daughter, Mary I (who later got the supervillain title, Bloody Mary).

In this play, H8 has a public crisis of conscience about his marriage being immoral (he has been married to his sister for 20+ years, which is neither kingly nor Christian). He annuls this marriage–though the terms with the most play in the book are “yoke” and “divorce”– and he publicly marries Anne Boleyn, a captivating courtier in poor Queen Katherine’s entourage. In the play, Katherine’s death follows the wedding and coronation of Anne. Anne gives birth to Henry’s second surviving daughter, Elizabeth I. H8’s third wife, Jane Seymour, gives birth to Henry’s only son, Edward VI.

Despite many wives and mistresses, Henry VIII had only three legitimate children who lived: a daughter, a son, and a daughter.

The fun begins when Henry VIII dies. As bastards were not in royal fashion at that time, his youngest child, Edward VI, took the throne. He died six and a half years later, still a teenager. Then the oldest surviving daughter, Mary I, seized the throne after competing against Elizabeth on a reality TV show. Bloody Mary fell ill and died a little more than five years into her rule, leaving Elizabeth as the last man standing, so to speak.

Queen Elizabeth famously reigned for 44 years and died without issue. She passed the crown to James, who was ruling at the time this play was first performed. James I was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots–not one of QE1’s best friends. However, Elizabeth’s grandfather, Henry VII, was also James I’s great-great-grandfather. James was the King of the King’s Men, but I’m unsure if he ever saw this play, which praises his second cousin, once removed, Elizabeth, and paints a complex picture of her father’s court.

H8’s love life is complex, so I made a couple of charts with info plucked from Wikipedia. And I will end here, for even though the play is titled “All is True,” I’m still struggling with the basics. Here are the wives and lovers, leaving out the other Boleyn girl:

Henry the VIII I am, I am, as the song goes. Here are the children:

Dramatis Personae for Henry VIII

Total Named Speaking Roles: 46 (This includes all named characters, even those with only a few lines. There are also many non-speaking “Lords,” “Ladies,” “Secretaries,” “Guards,” “Attendants,” etc.)

1. The Royal Family & Immediate Circle
2. King Henry VIII
3. Katherine of Aragon(Queen, later Princess Dowager)
4. Anne Bullen (Boleyn)(later Marquess of Pembroke, then Queen)
5. Old Lady(Anne Boleyn’s companion)
6. Patience(Katherine’s gentlewoman)
7. The Clergy & Church Officials
8. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey(Lord Chancellor, Cardinal of York)
9. Cardinal Thomas Cranmer(Archbishop of Canterbury)
10. Cardinal Lorenzo Campeius(Papal Legate from Rome)
11. Stephen Gardiner(Bishop of Winchester, later the King’s Secretary)
12. Bishop of Lincoln(Silent role in trial scene)
13. Bishop of Ely(Silent role in trial scene)
14. Bishop of Rochester(Silent role in trial scene)
15. Abbot of Westminster(Mentioned)
16. Doctor Butts(The King’s Physician)

III. The Nobility: Pro-Wolsey / Conservative Faction

(Generally allied with Wolsey or Gardiner)

15. Lord Sands(aka Sir William Sands; later Henry’s courtier)
16. Sir Henry Guildford(Chamberlain to Henry VIII)
17. Sir Thomas Lovell
18. Sir Anthony Denny
19. Sir Nicholas Vaux(Appears as “Vaux”)
20. The Nobility: Anti-Wolsey / Old Aristocracy Faction

(These resent Wolsey’s power and often support Katherine)

20. Duke of Buckingham(Edward Bohun)
21. Duke of Norfolk(Thomas Howard)
22. Duke of Suffolk(Charles Brandon)
23. Earl of Surrey(Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s son)
24. Lord Abergavenny(George Neville, allied with Buckingham)
25. Marquess Dorset(Henry Grey? – appears briefly)
26. Lord Berkeley(Attendant on Buckingham)
27. Government Officials & Servants
28. Thomas Cromwell(Wolsey’s secretary, later in royal service)
29. Secretaries(to Wolsey – two speaking roles)
30. Sir Walter Sands(Distinct from Lord Sands? Possibly a duplication/error)
31. Brandon(A Sergeant-at-Arms)
32. Griffith(Katherine’s Gentleman Usher)
33. Surveyor to the Duke of Buckingham(Charles Knevet, whose testimony dooms Buckingham)
34. Crier(of the court)
35. Porter(and his Man – comic relief scene at the christening)
36. Door-Keeper(at the Council Chamber)
37. Garter King-of-Arms(Herald at coronation and christening)
38. Sergeant Porter
39. Ambassadors & Foreign Dignitaries
40. Lord Chancellor(of France – attends the masque)
41. Two French Gentlemen(Attend the masque)

VII. Commoners & Others

40. Woman(accompanying Anne Boleyn)
41. Prologues & Epilogues(Spoken by a single actor, but often listed as separate “Characters”)
42. Scrivener(Reads the indictment)
43. Messengers(Several)

VIII. Key Non-Speaking / Group Roles (for context)

• Lords and Ladies of the Court
• Bishops and Priests (in various ceremonies)
• Judges
• Spirit vision of Katherine (six white-clad folks in her dream)
• Attendants, Guards, Servants, Pages

With help from DeepSeek.