Henry VIII Bullet Points

• Unlike almost all of the other plays, the date for this one can be pinpointed with almost total accuracy, and the reason is interesting. Apparently, this play was responsible for burning down the Globe Theater, which makes me like it even less. Here’s how it went down: Early in the play, there is stage direction to fire a cannon, which apparently lit the thatched roof of the Globe on fire (not part of the play for sure), burning it to the ground. This fire (and the play that caused it) is noted extensively in letters and commentary from the day, correspondence that can be dated exactly (June 29th, 1613). So there.

• This is another play (the other being The Two Noble Kinsmen) in which co-authorship with one John Fletcher is pretty well established. You (or at least I) can feel the presence of another hand (I think), much more so than the Kinsmen play. Some of the language (for example, the use of the contraction ‘em all over the place) and lots of the structure seems foreign to me.

• This play is different in that it possesses detailed stage directions. This is an anomaly for Shakespeare, who hardly included any in his other works. Again, the presence of another writer in the work could account for this.

• Last but certainly not least, there are no battles in this play, the only History play without one. This lacking is replaced by lots of pageantry and celebratory cannon shot (see above). Given what happened with the pyrotechnics, they probably should have stuck with a battle.