History Theatre / HenryVIII

[[quoteright:282:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/viii_7364.jpg]]

* CorruptChurch: The Catholic Church, especially as personified by Cardinal Wolsey.
* CoversAlwaysLie: The subtitle for this play is "All is True."

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: Wolsey, of course.
* KangarooCourt: Katherine's divorce proceedings.
* OffWithHisHead: So much for Buckingham.

''Henry VIII'' is a play co-written by Creator/WilliamShakespeare and Creator/JohnFletcher. It tells the story of King UsefulNotes/HenryVIII of England, focusing on the machinations of Cardinal Wolsey surrounding both the trial and execution of the Duke of Buckingham and the annulment of Henry's marriage with Katherine of Aragon. It ends with Henry's marriage to UsefulNotes/AnneBoleyn and the subsequent birth of the future Queen Elizabeth I. In real life these events occurred over a 13-year period; here they happen within (at most) a few months' time.

The play is thought to have first been performed privately as part of the celebrations surrounding the marriage of James I's daughter Elizabeth to Frederick, Elector Palatine.[[note]]Elizabeth's grandson eventually succeeded to the British throne as George I.[[/note]] Its first public performance in June 1613 led to the Globe Theatre burning down. Notwithstanding the disaster, ''Henry [=VIII=]'' was one of the few Shakespearean plays to retain its popularity after the Restoration and into the 18th and 19th centuries. The great Georgian actress Sarah Siddons considered the role of Queen Katherine to be Shakespeare's finest female part.

''Henry VIII'' is a play co-written by Creator/WilliamShakespeare and John Fletcher. It tells the story of King UsefulNotes/HenryVIII of England, focusing on the machinations of Cardinal Wolsey surrounding both the trial and execution of the Duke of Buckingham and the annulment of Henry's marriage with Katherine of Aragon. It ends with Henry's marriage to UsefulNotes/AnneBoleyn and the subsequent birth of the future Queen Elizabeth I. In real life these events occurred over a 13-year period; here they happen within (at most) a few months' time.

* CharacterTitle

* DemotedToExtra:
** There is a passing reference to Elizabeth's older half-sister Princess Mary but she is not really a character in the play.
** Anne Boleyn (spelled here "Bullen") is also hardly more than an extra; she and Queen Katherine never meet.[[note]]One suspects that faced with choosing between the Protestant saint beloved by a fervent minority or the whore sneered at by most, the writers wisely shifted her into the background. [[/note]]

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Elizabeth's birth is the happy ending of this play, with everyone talking about how wonderful it will be when she's queen. Never mind that, at the time of her birth, there was no reason to believe that Elizabeth would ever become queen; indeed, the fact that Henry and Katherine already ''had'' a daughter is carefully omitted.
** The play was written (or at least first performed) in honour of the marriage of James's daughter, also named Elizabeth. It's probably not a bad bet that the praise was meant as much for her as for Queen Bess.

* DemotedToExtra: There is a passing reference to Elizabeth's older half-sister Princess Mary but she is not really a character in the play.
** Anne Boleyn (spelled here "Bullen") is also hardly more than an extra; she and Queen Katherine never meet.[[note]]One suspects that faced with choosing between the Protestant saint beloved by a fervent minority or the whore sneered at by most, the writers wisely shifted her into the background. [[/note]]

''Henry VIII'' is a play co-written by Creator/WilliamShakespeare and John Fletcher. It tells the story of King HenryVIII of England, focusing on the machinations of Cardinal Wolsey surrounding both the trial and execution of the Duke of Buckingham and the annulment of Henry's marriage with Katherine of Aragon. It ends with Henry's marriage to UsefulNotes/AnneBoleyn and the subsequent birth of the future Queen Elizabeth I. In real life these events occurred over a 13-year period; here they happen within (at most) a few months' time.

''Henry VIII'' is a play co-written by Creator/WilliamShakespeare and John Fletcher. It tells the story of King HenryVIII of England, focusing on the machinations of Cardinal Wolsey surrounding both the trial and execution of the Duke of Buckingham and the annulment of Henry's marriage with Katherine of Aragon. It ends with Henry's marriage to AnneBoleyn and the subsequent birth of the future Queen Elizabeth I. In real life these events occurred over a 13-year period; here they happen within (at most) a few months' time.

''Henry VIII'' is a play co-written by Creator/WilliamShakespeare and John Fletcher. It tells the story of King HenryVIII of England, focusing on the machinations of Cardinal Wolsey surrounding both the trial and execution of the Duke of Buckingham and the annulment of Henry's marriage with Katherine of Aragon. It ends with Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn and the subsequent birth of the future Queen Elizabeth I. In real life these events occurred over a 13-year period; here they happen within (at most) a few months' time.

The play is thought to have first been performed privately as part of the celebrations surrounding the marriage of James I's daughter Elizabeth to Frederick, Elector Palatine.[[note]]Elizabeth's grandson eventually succeeded to the British throne as George I.[[/note]] Its first public performance in a June 1613 led to the Globe Theatre burning down. Notwithstanding the disaster, ''Henry [=VIII=]'' was one of the few Shakespearean plays to retain its popularity after the Restoration and into the 18th and 19th centuries. The great Georgian actress Sarah Siddons considered the role of Queen Katherine to be Shakespeare's finest female part.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Elizabeth's birth is the happy ending of this play, with everyone talking about how wonderful it will be when she's queen (oddly, evidence is racking up that this was written during ''James's'' reign). Never mind that, at the time of her birth, there was no reason to believe that Elizabeth would ever become queen; indeed, the fact that Henry and Katherine already ''had'' a daughter is carefully omitted.

''Henry VIII'' is a play co-written by Creator/WilliamShakespeare and John Fletcher. It tells the story of King HenryVIII of England, focusing on the machinations of Cardinal Wolsey surrounding both the trial and execution of the Duke of Buckingham and the annulment of Henry's marriage with Katherine of Aragon. It ends with Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn and the subsequent birth of the future Queen Elizabeth I.

** Anne Boleyn (spelled here "Bullen") is also hardly more than an extra. One suspects that faced with choosing between the Protestant saint beloved by a fervent minority or the whore sneered at by most, the writers wisely shifted her into the background.

* OffWithHisHead!: So much for Buckingham.

''Henry VIII'' is a play by Creator/WilliamShakespeare. It tells the story of King HenryVIII of England, focusing on his divorce from Katherine of Aragon, his marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the subsequent birth of the future Queen Elizabeth. While most other works about the English reformation present Anne in a tragic light this play ends with the birth of their daughter and doesn't cover the circumstances of Anne's execution or Henry's other four wives. The play is not as widely performed as most of Shakespeare's other works.

* WrittenByTheWinners: Shakespeare often included propaganda on his "historical plays" to please the royal family.

''Henry VIII'' is a play by Creator/WilliamShakespeare. It tells the story of King HenryVIII of England, focusing on his divorce from Katherine of Aragon, his marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the subsequent birth of the future Queen Elizabeth.

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Elizabeth's birth is the happy ending of this play, with everyone talking about how wonderful it will be when she's queen (three guesses who was on the throne at the time the play debuted). Never mind that, at the time of her birth, there was no reason to believe that Elizabeth would ever become queen...

* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: Elizabeth's birth is the happy ending of this play, with everyone talking about how wonderful it will be when she's queen. Never mind that, at the time of her birth, there was no reason to believe that Elizabeth would ever become queen...

''Henry VIII'' is a play by WilliamShakespeare. It tells the story of King HenryVIII of England, focusing on his divorce from Katherine of Aragon, his marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the subsequent birth of the future Queen Elizabeth.

!!Tropes featured include:

Play by WilliamShakespeare based on the life of King HenryVIII.

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/HenryVIII.jpg]]
'''Henry VIII (1509-1547)'''

->''The plain truth is, that he was a most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the History of England.''
-->-- '''CharlesDickens''', ''A Child's History of England''

The man with six wives. Every British person can remember what happened to them -- "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived". Actually the "spare" to his elder brother Arthur, he ended up in line to the throne after Arthur died (marrying his brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon, the first 'Spanish' Princess, the realms of Aragon and Castille having been united (temporarily, people thought) by the marriage of her parents). He was only 18 when he came to the throne and engaged in some WackyFratboyHijinx in his early years as King (he and some male buddies once burst into the Queen's bedchamber dressed as RobinHood and his Merry Men). A redhead, he does remind one of his contemporary namesake, Prince Henry of Wales (Prince Harry).

He was far more extravagant than his miserly father -- responsible for quite possibly the most extravagant diplomatic summit in history, the Field of the Cloth of Gold. There he proceeded to have a wrestling match with the King of France, François I. Though very showy, it didn't accomplish much.

Henry restored English control over most of Ireland by a system of 'surrender and regrant', bringing Ireland back under proper royal jurisdiction -- prior to this point English power in Ireland had been in decline for centuries and was purely nominal outside the the area surrounding Dublin, known as 'The Pale'. Once this process was complete he declared himself King of all Ireland in 1542, a title English (and later British) monarchs would hold for four centuries, and still hold in part i.e. Northern Ireland (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it's called).

He's most famous for establishing royal control over the Church in England because he wanted a divorce (technically an annulment) so he could marry his mistress. That's the gist of it, anyway. Anyway, annulments were fairly common and it didn't seem like it would be a big deal. Problem was, Catherine's nephew Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Castile and Aragon (i.e. Spain) had been fighting with Francis I of France and Clement VII, {{the Pope}}, over northern Italy. After winning the latest war against France and the Vatican, Charles' mercenaries had run amok, sacking Rome and taking the Pope hostage. This was sufficient to intimidate Clement into stalling over the annulment for a further six years to avoid provoking anyone. Looking back on the issue, it almost seems as if the Pope wanted Henry to take care of it himself: Henry was only excommunicated (cut off from the Church) in 1537, three years after he made himself head of the English Church (when it was clear that had left the Catholic fold and wasn't coming back).

On an interesting sidetrack, Henry was actually a devoted Catholic, in private at least. Working with Thomas Cranmer -- a famous theologian and one of his best servants -- in 1521 he published an essay ('In Defence of the Seven Sacraments') attacking Martin Luther's teachings, for which the Pope gave him the title Defender of the Faith -- a title the British monarchy has retained to this day.

After seven years of legal stalling tactics, Henry decided he'd had enough and outlawed the Pope's authority in 1533 to turn his divorce settlement over to his chum, Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, making himself Supreme Head of the Church in England in 1534. A few years later the monasteries of England were dissolved and all their lands and property taken, not because he didn't like them but because he liked the money more. Most of the money was promptly spent on a series of forts and another war with France. Some money also went to founding a cannon foundry to provide cannon for his armies and a new institution, the Royal Navy.

The formal dissolution of the smaller Monasteries in 1536 worked together with bad harvests and an inheritance tax on the nobility to prompt a huge uprising by just about everyone in the North of England ('The Pilgrimage of Grace') later that same year. This was stopped by Henry appearing to concede to the rebels' demands, not having enough troops to put them down by force. When a further uprising began, Henry VIII considered himself absolved of the whole deal and brutally retaliated. The leader of the rebellion, Robert Aske, was sentenced to death and begged to be fully dead before being dismembered. Henry [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial agreed]] and instead hanged him in chains-- that is sticking him in a gibbet while still alive.

After divorcing Catherine he married Anne Boleyn (who was very clearly pregnant at the ceremony). She gave birth to Elizabeth (later [[TheVirginQueen Queen Elizabeth I]]) and made two unsuccessful attempts to produce a male heir. Anne was a very controversial figure in the court, apparently more willing to argue with her husband and Cromwell than either man liked. She was beheaded for adultery on trumped up charges once Henry tired of her. It didn't help that after giving him a healthy daughter (Elizabeth I), Anne miscarried a baby boy, Henry's longed for heir.

He then married Jane Seymour who had a son, the future king Edward VI. However she died after childbirth, which caused Henry to sink into a deep depression from which some believe he never fully recovered.

Henry's fourth marriage was a political one to Anne of Cleves, arranged by Cromwell to bring England closer to the Protestant Schmalkaldic league in case of a war with Francis and/or Charles. Rumour has it that Henry's court painter had portrayed her as misleadingly beautiful, but it's possible that Henry's idea of beauty, being a King and all, probably matched our concept of HollywoodHomely. Once England's enemies started fighting each other again the alliance fell apart and Henry had another annulment for his latest unconsummated marriage. Anne gained a good settlement out of it and lived the rest of her life unmarried but quite happy as Henry's "[[LikeBrotherAndSister beloved sister]]" in England.

Henry's next wife was Catherine Howard. At this point, his health was declining due to his weight (over 140 kilos/300 lbs) as well a nasty ulcerated wound on his leg and possibly gout. She had several affairs and was eventually executed for adultery.

Catherine Parr, a long time friend, was the sixth and last wife. Henry died before she did.

Generally speaking, historians and the establishment dislike him (see the page quote from Dickens) while he remains quite popular with the English people--largely because he, or rather his famous portrait by Holbein, is what people invariably picture when they think of an interesting King. The fact that the British history syllabus emphasises the Tudors probably helps too.
----
!!Portrayals of Henry VIII in fiction:
* [[JonathanRhysMeyers Jonathan Rhys-Meyers]] played him on ''TheTudors'', albeit a slightly [[AdaptationalAttractiveness more attractive]] version.
* Keith Mitchell played him in ''{{The Six Wives of Henry VIII}}'', although the focus is more on the women in his life.
* CharlesLaughton played him in ''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933) and ''Young Bess'' (1953).
* The play ''AManForAllSeasons'' is about Thomas More's refusal to support Henry's divorce, and the ensuing conflict. In the 1966 film adaptation, Henry is played by Robert Shaw.
* In ''Anne of the Thousand Days'', he's played by Richard Burton.
* He briefly appears before his death in MarkTwain's ''ThePrinceAndThePauper''.
* In ''TheSimpsons'' episode "Margical History Tour", which shows the characters in the place of famous historical figures, Homer appears as Henry.
* His portrait gets a lingering look from CateBlanchett in the film ''{{Elizabeth}}''. Understandably, since she's his daughter.
* Played by EricBana (BetterThanItSounds) in the film version of ''TheOtherBoleynGirl''.
* RayWinstone played an improbably Cockney-sounding Henry in the {{ITV}} drama [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin simply called]] ''Henry VIII''.
* [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/show/p0056cb5/henry_80/ Henry 8.0]] depicts Henry as living in a modern suburb, played by BrianBlessed.
----