King John & Henry VIII Read online

  1596–97 The First Part of Henry the Fourth

  1597–98 The Second Part of Henry the Fourth

  1598 Much Ado About Nothing

  1598–99 The Passionate Pilgrim (20 poems, some not by Shakespeare)

  1599 The Life of Henry the Fifth

  1599 “To the Queen” (epilogue for a court performance)

  1599 As You Like It

  1599 The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

  1600–01 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (perhaps revising an earlier version)

  1600–01 The Merry Wives of Windsor (perhaps revising version of 1597–99)

  1601 “Let the Bird of Loudest Lay” (poem, known since 1807 as “The Phoenix and Turtle” [turtledove])

  1601 Twelfth Night, or What You Will

  1601–02 The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida

  1604 The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice

  1604 Measure for Measure

  1605 All’s Well That Ends Well

  1605 The Life of Timon of Athens, with Thomas Middleton

  1605–06 The Tragedy of King Lear

  1605–08 ? contribution to The Four Plays in One (lost, except for A Yorkshire Tragedy, mostly by Thomas Middleton)

  1606 The Tragedy of Macbeth (surviving text has additional scenes by Thomas Middleton)

  1606–07 The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

  1608 The Tragedy of Coriolanus

  1608 Pericles, Prince of Tyre, with George Wilkins

  1610 The Tragedy of Cymbeline

  1611 The Winter’s Tale

  1611 The Tempest

  1612–13 Cardenio, with John Fletcher (survives only in later adaptation called Double Falsehood by Lewis Theobald)

  1613 Henry VIII (All Is True), with John Fletcher

  1613–14 The Two Noble Kinsmen, with John Fletcher

  KINGS AND QUEENS OF

  ENGLAND: FROM THE

  HISTORY PLAYS TO

  SHAKESPEARE’S LIFETIME

  Life Span Reign

  Angevins:

  Henry II 1133–1189 1154–1189

  Richard I 1157–1199 1189–1199

  John 1166–1216 1199–1216

  Henry III 1207–1272 1216–1272

  Edward I 1239–1307 1272–1307

  Edward II 1284–1327 1307–1327 deposed

  Edward III 1312–1377 1327–1377

  Richard II 1367–1400 1377–1399 deposed

  Lancastrians:

  Henry IV 1367–1413 1399–1413

  Henry V 1387–1422 1413–1422

  Henry VI 1421–1471 1422–1461 and 1470–1471

  Yorkists:

  Edward IV 1442–1483 1461–1470 and 1471–1483

  Edward V 1470–1483 1483 not crowned: deposed and assassinated

  Richard III 1452–1485 1483–1485

  Tudors:

  Henry VII 1457–1509 1485–1509

  Henry VIII 1491–1547 1509–1547

  Edward VI 1537–1553 1547–1553

  Jane 1537–1554 1553 not crowned: deposed and executed

  Mary I 1516–1558 1553–1558

  Philip of Spain 1527–1598 1554–1558 co-regent with Mary

  Elizabeth I 1533–1603 1558–1603

  Stuart:

  James I 1566–1625 1603–1625 James VI of Scotland (1567–1625)

  KING JOHN FAMILY TREE

  THE HISTORY BEHIND THE

  HISTORIES: A CHRONOLOGY

  Square brackets indicate events that happen just outside a play’s timescale but are mentioned in the play.

  FURTHER READING

  AND VIEWING

  KING JOHN

  Critical Approaches

  Campbell, Lily B., Shakespeare’s “Histories”: Mirrors of Elizabethan Policy (1947). Still relevant examination of the plays in their historical context: chapter XII, “The Troublesome Reign of King John,” offers interesting parallels with Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

  Candido, Joseph, ed., Shakespeare: The Critical Tradition: King John (1996). Valuable collection of early critical essays and performance reviews from 1790 to 1919.

  Chernaik, Warren, The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare’s History Plays (2007). Contains short, useful overviews: chapter 5, “Gain, Be My Lord: King John” (pp. 70–90).

  Curren-Aquino, Deborah T., ed., King John: New Perspectives (1989). Thoughtful, varied collection of twentieth-century critical essays.

  Howard, Jean E., and Phyllis Rackin, Engendering a Nation: A Feminist Account of Shakespeare’s English Histories (1997). Introductory chapters focus on gender as an issue in Shakespeare’s history plays: chapter 9, on King John, explores the centrality of women, maternity, and the “ideological faultlines” that the play explores (pp. 119–36); reprinted in Shakespeare’s Histories, ed. Emma Smith (2004), pp. 182–95.

  Jones, Robert C., These Valiant Dead: Renewing the Past in Shakespeare’s Histories (1991). Examines Shakespeare’s understanding of history as expressed by characters within the plays; chapter 4 on King John, “ ‘Perfect Richard’ versus ‘This Old World,’ ” considers the role of the Bastard as a central character and critical commentator.

  Piesse, A. J., “King John: Changing Perspective,” in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays, ed. M. Hattaway (2002).

  Examines the textual relationship between Shakespeare’s play, the anonymous The Troublesome Reign of King John of England, and John Bale’s King Johan, considering the relationship between the legitimacy of the historical play text and the illegitimate character of the Bastard. Shirley, Frances A., ed., King John and Henry VIII: Critical Essays (1988). Comprehensive selection of important critical essays that examine all aspects of the plays from language, structure, and historical context to performance—King John (pp. 3–205).

  THE PLAY IN PERFORMANCE

  Hodgdon, Barbara, The End Crowns All: Closure and Contradiction in Shakespeare’s History (1991). Focuses on the plays’ endings, moving between textual meanings and theatrical representation in significant C20 productions; chapter 2, “Fashioning Obedience: King John’s ‘True Inheritors,’ ” examines King John (pp. 22–43).

  Jackson, Russell, and Robert Smallwood, eds., Players of Shakespeare 3 (1993). Actors give details of their roles and performances; Nicholas Woodeson talks about his performance as King John in Deborah Warner’s 1988 production (pp. 87–98).

  Shattuck, Charles A., William Charles Macready’s King John (1962). Includes details of performance, illustrations, and a facsimile promptbook of this famous, historical production.

  Smallwood, Robert, ed., Players of Shakespeare 6 (2004). Guy Henry, Kelly Hunter, and Jo Stone-Fewings discuss playing Henry, Constance, and the Bastard, respectively, in Gregory Doran’s 2002 production (pp. 22–36, 37–49, 50–67).

  Tardiff, Joseph C., ed., Shakespearean Criticism 24 (1994). Good stage history overview with reviews and retrospective accounts of selected productions.

  AVAILABLE ON DVD

  King John directed by William Kennedy, Laurie Dickson, and Walter Fieffer Dando (1899). A three-minute silent short of Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s historic production was made: available on YouTube.

  King John directed by David Giles for the BBC Shakespeare Series (1984, DVD 2004). Highly praised production with Leonard Ros siter, John Thaw, and Claire Bloom.

  HENRY VIII

  Critical Approaches

  Baillie, William M., “Henry VIII: A Jacobean History,” in Shakespeare Studies 12 (1979), pp. 247–66. Detailed analysis, setting the play within its historical context.

  Berry, Edward I., “Henry VIII and the Dynamics of Spectacle,” Shakespeare Studies 12 (1979), pp. 229–46. Persuasive essay that argues for the play’s value as a blend of history, tragedy, masque, and romance.

  Chernaik, Warren, The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare’s History Plays (2007). Chapter 9 on Henry VIII offers a short introductory overview with some references to the play in performance (pp. 168–78).

  Dean, Paul, “Dramatic Mode and Historical Vision
in Henry VIII,” in Shakespeare Quarterly 37(2) (Summer 1986), pp. 175–89. Examines the play’s romance structure in relation to its chronicle sources.

  Glimp, David, “Staging Government: Shakespeare’s Life of King Henry the Eighth and the Government of Generations,” in Criticism 41(1) (Winter 1999), pp. 41–69. Discusses problematics of the interaction between political authority and anxieties regarding theatrical representation in the Elizabethan/Jacobean period.

  Hattaway, Michael, ed., Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays (2002). Excellent introduction and overview to subject; there’s no specific chapter on Henry VIII, but there are numerous references in passing, especially in chapter 3 by David M. Bergeron, “Pageants, Masques and History” (pp. 41–56), and chapter 13 by R. A. Foakes, “Shakespeare’s Other Historical Plays” (pp. 214–28), discusses Henry VIII (pp. 223–28).

  Kamps, Ivo, “Possible Pasts: Historiography and Legitimation in Henry VIII” in College English, Vol. 58, No. 2, Feb. 1996, pp. 192–215. Sees the play as a Jacobean response to developments in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century historiographical discourses, marking a break with Tudor thinking about history and a unique Jacobean response.

  Magnusson, A. Lynne, “The Rhetoric of Politeness and Henry VIII” in Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 4, Winter 1992, pp. 391–409. A detailed linguistic analysis, focusing on class and gender.

  Noll, Mark A., “The Reformation and Shakespeare: Focus on Henry VIII” in Shakespeare and the Christian Tradition, ed. Beatrice Batson (1994). Sees Shakespeare’s play as an exploration of the English Reformation and ally of historians in their search for its “human meaning.”

  Ornstein, Robert, A Kingdom for a Stage (1972). Discusses Henry VIII in terms of the play’s opacity and ambiguity, calling it an “extended double-entendre,” and arguing that Shakespeare found it easier to adapt to Fletcher’s “courtly manner” than Fletcher to “imitate his way with history,” pp. 203–220.

  Shirley, Frances A., ed., King John and Henry VIII: Critical Essays (1988). Comprehensive selection of important critical essays that examine all aspects of the plays from language, structure, and historical context to performance—Henry VIII, pp. 209–378.

  Wilson Knight, G. “Henry VIII and the Poetry of Conversion” in The Crown of Life: Essays in Interpretation of Shakespeare’s Final Plays, pp. 256–336. Influential, now classic essay, which argues Shakespeare’s final plays are centrally concerned with the nature of art.

  THE PLAY IN PERFORMANCE

  Richmond, Hugh, Shakespeare in Performance: Henry VIII (1994). Wide-ranging, detailed stage history overview with chapters on performance issues and important productions up to 1983.

  Shrimpton, Nicholas, “Shakespeare Performances in Stratford-upon-Avon and London, 1982–3,” Shakespeare Survey 37, 1984, pp. 163–73. Includes perceptive, detailed account of Howard Davies’s 1983 RSC production of Henry VIII.

  Smallwood, Robert, ed., Players of Shakespeare 4 (1998). Features actors discussing their roles and performances in detail; Paul Jesson talks about playing Henry in Gregory Doran’s 1996 production (pp. 114–31), and Jane Lapotaire talks about playing Katherine in the same production (pp. 132–51).

  AVAILABLE ON DVD

  The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth directed by Kevin Billington for the BBC Television Shakespeare Series (1979, DVD 2005). Excellent, televisually sophisticated version with John Stride, Claire Bloom, and Ronald Pickup: one of the best in this series.

  REFERENCES: KING JOHN

  AND HENRY VIII

  KING JOHN

  1. Francis Meres, Palladis Tamia. Wits Treasury (1598).

  2. Anthony Munday, Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon (1601), ed. John C. Meagher (1965).

  3. Emmett L. Avery, “Cibber, King John, and the Students of the Law,” Modern Language Notes 53, 1938, pp. 272–75.

  4. Stanley Wells, ed., Nineteenth-Century Shakespeare Burlesques (1977).

  5. Thomas Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick (1784).

  6. Francis Gentleman, The Dramatic Censor (1770).

  7. Davies, Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick I, pp. 55–56.

  8. Thomas Campbell, Life of Mrs Siddons (1834), pp. 112–14.

  9. The Times (London), 25 October 1842.

  10. Hazlitt, London Magazine, 1820; quoted in Jonathan Bate, “The Romantic Stage,” in Jonathan Bate and Russell Jackson, eds., Shakespeare: An Illustrated Stage History (1996).

  11. Bate, “The Romantic Stage.”

  12. Henry N. Coleridge, ed., Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1836). Extract reprinted in Jonathan Bate, ed., The Romantics on Shakespeare (1992), p. 160.

  13. Alan S. Downer, The Eminent Tragedian William Charles Macready (1966), p. 69.

  14. Downer, The Eminent Tragedian William Charles Macready, p. 80.

  15. A. B. Walkley, “Review of King John,” The Speaker, 30 September 1899. Reprinted in H. H. Furness, ed., The New Variorum Edition of King John (1919), p. 689.

  16. See Campbell’s biography of Mrs. Siddons (Campbell, Life of Mrs Siddons, particularly pp. 117–18).

  17. Daily Telegraph, 17 April 1957.

  18. Geraldine Cousin, King John (Shakespeare in Performance Series) (1994).

  19. The Times (London), 4 May 1989.

  20. Charles Spencer, “Second-Rate Shakespeare,” Daily Telegraph, 9 March 2001.

  21. Kate Bassett, “Three Rattling Nights Out With a Loutish King, One Trollop and a Paedophile,” Independent on Sunday, 11 March 2001.

  22. Stratford-upon-Avon Herald, 19 April 1957.

  23. Bate, “The Romantic Stage,” p. 107.

  24. Michael R. Booth, Victorian Spectacular Theatre, 1850–1910 (1981); Martin Meisel, Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England (1983).

  25. Meisel, Realizations, p. 38.

  26. James Robinson Planché, The Recollections and Reflections of J.R. Planché (Somerset Herald): A Professional Autobiography (1872), pp. 56–57.

  27. Charles H. Shattuck, William Charles Macready’s King John (1962).

  28. Ibid.

  29. Ibid.

  30. All of these features of Tree’s production may be gleaned from a contemporary review by Max Beerbohm, Tree’s half-brother: Max Beerbohm, “Review of King John,” Saturday Review, 30 September 1899, reprinted in Max Beerbohm, More Theatres, 1898–1903 (1969), pp. 191–93.

  31. Antony Davies, “From the Old Vic to Gielgud and Olivier,” in Bate and Jackson, Shakespeare: An Illustrated Stage History, pp. 139–59.

  32. Clause 39 states that “no free man shall be … imprisoned or dispossessed … except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.”

  33. John Palmer, Political Characters of Shakespeare (1945), p. 322.

  34. Malcolm A. Nelson, The Robin Hood Tradition in the English Renaissance (1973).

  35. F. J. Child, ed., English and Scottish Popular Ballads, five vols. (1882–98) (reprinted 1965); R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor, eds., Rymes of Robin Hode: An Introduction to the English Outlaw (1976).

  36. See for example Kenneth McClellan, Whatever Happened to Shakespeare? (1978); Cousin, King John.

  37. See for example Jonathan Bate, Shakespearean Constitutions: Politics, Theatre, Criticism (1989); A. R. Braunmuller, ed., The Oxford Shakespeare Edition of King John (1989).

  38. Spectator, 12 June 1970.

  39. New Statesman, 19 June 1970; quoted in Cousin, King John, p. 63.

  40. Peter Thomson, “A Necessary Theatre: The Royal Shakespeare Season 1970 Reviewed,” Shakespeare Survey 24, 1971, pp. 117–26.

  41. Observer, 24 March 1974.

  42. R. L. Smallwood, “Shakespeare Unbalanced: The Royal Shakespeare Company’s King John, 1974–75,” Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft West Jahrbuch, 1976, pp. 79–99.

  43. Peter Thomson, “The Smallest Season: The Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford in 1974,” Shakespeare Survey 28, 1975, pp. 137–48.
/>   44. Cousin, King John, p. 101.

  45. Daily Telegraph, 30 May 1988.

  46. Observer, 15 May 1988.

  47. Cousin, King John, p. 116.

  48. The Times, 4 May 1989.

  49. Daily Telegraph, 30 May 1988.

  50. Independent, 12 May 1988.

  51. Financial Times, 12 May 1988.

  52. Ibid.

  53. Michael Billington, “Bold Return for Shakespeare’s Orphan,” Guardian, 8 March 2001.

  54. Charles Spencer “Laying Bare the Dark Heart of the Political Process,” Daily Telegraph, 30 March 2001.

  55. Billington, “Bold Return for Shakespeare’s Orphan.”

  56. Adrien Bonjour, “The Road to Swinstead Abbey: A Study of the Sense and Structure of King John,” ELH, Vol. 18, No. 4, December 1951, pp. 253–74.

  57. The Times (London), 25 October 1842; quoted in Shattuck, William Charles Macready’s King John, p. 49.

  58. Kate Bassett, “Ullo John, Got a Zippy Satirical and Welcome New Staging?” Independent on Sunday, 1 April 2001.

  59. John Peter, Sunday Times (London), 1 April 2001.

  60. Michael Billington, “A Kingly Klutz in Stratford,” Guardian, 30 March 2001.

  61. Independent, 8 August 2006.

  62. Independent, 8 August 2006.

  63. Daily Telegraph, 7 August 2006.

  HENRY VIII

  64. Sir Henry Wotton, letter dated 2 July 1613, in Logan Pearsall Smith, ed., The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton (1970); also available at: www.globe-theatre.org.uk/globe-theatre-fire.htm.

  65. John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (1708).

  66. William Winter, “King Henry VIII—Historical Comment,” in Shakespeare on the Stage (1911), pp. 516–64.

  67. The Times (London), 21 October 1811.

  68. Ibid.

  69. Ibid.

  70. Percy Fitzgerald, “Kemble Manager,” The Kembles, Vol. I (1871), pp. 276–97.