Age recommendation: Henry VIII is a history play without battles, full of court intrigue, plots and plans, pomp and pageantry. Prepared youth with some knowledge of the history of Tudor England will have a better understanding of the complexities of the plots.

Please note: Children under 6 are not admitted to plays or other events.

e-Luminations: A Sumptuous History
Click here to read an excerpt from Illuminations, OSF's 64-page guide to the plays.

Videos:
Structural elements of the play (8:00)
Historical accuracy; is all true? (5:22)
About the production (2:26)

Synopsis: Entering the second decade of his reign (1509-1547), Henry VIII still delegates the governing of England to the Machiavellian Cardinal Wolsey, the actual power behind Henry’s throne. But even as the king favors Wolsey, others in the court resent and mistrust him. As the play opens, the Duke of Buckingham rashly threatens to unmask Wolsey’s misdeeds. Wolsey strikes first, charging the Duke with treason. The king orders Buckingham’s execution. Then Wolsey adroitly escapes reprimand when Queen Katherine informs the king of the oppressive taxes that Wolsey has levied on the people. The King rescinds the taxes, but Wolsey takes public credit for the king’s generous act.

Katherine falls soon after Buckingham. The conscience of the king (who still lacks an heir) leads him to question the legitimacy of his long marriage to her, especially after he meets the beautiful Anne Bullen (Shakespeare’s spelling of Boleyn). Wolsey lays the groundwork for a royal divorce, with the help of Cardinal Campeius of Rome. Katherine accuses Wolsey of instigating this scheme (a claim Henry denies), defends her faithful service to the king, and walks out of a preliminary hearing, refusing to be subject to the counsel of the two cardinals. Later, they force her to acknowledge that she is powerless to resist, and she agrees not to contest the divorce in a public trial.

Suddenly, Wolsey’s machinations bring his own downfall. The king signals his intention to remarry by granting Anne a fortune and a new title. But Wolsey has planned a different match to further an alliance with the French, crucial to his own ambition to become Pope, so he asks Rome to delay the divorce. This incriminating letter, as well as an inventory of Wolsey’s ill-gotten riches, is included accidentally among papers delivered to the king. When Henry reads these, he is outraged.

Stripped of his office and wealth, Wolsey meditates on the vanity of earthly ambition. Later, when news of Wolsey’s death reaches Katherine, she rejoices at his fate but is counseled by her servant Griffith to pity him and to accept her own fall. Anne, whom the king has secretly married, is crowned queen with pomp and ceremony, as Katherine, on her deathbed, experiences a heavenly vision.

Meanwhile, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, succeeds Wolsey as the king’s right-hand man. But Stephen Gardiner, the powerful Bishop of Winchester, plots to destroy Cranmer because of the archbishop’s support for continued reformation of the church. (Gardiner likewise prays for the death of Anne — now in labor with the king’s child — because of her Protestant sympathies.)

With the nobles’ support, Gardiner accuses Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, the king’s new secretary, of heresy and orders Cranmer imprisoned in the Tower. But Cranmer produces the ring lent him earlier by the king, and the king himself intervenes to rebuke Gardiner. Henry honors Cranmer by inviting him to baptize the newborn royal child. Cranmer prophesies the glorious future reign of the infant Princess Elizabeth and foretells that, though childless, Elizabeth will be succeeded by a great king (James I). —Alan Armstrong