Brandon’s Reviews > King Henry VIII > Status Update

V.v has no irony about H8’s future marriage’s an E1’s scrappy existence at the royal margins.

V.iii twists Cranmer from The Tower to E1’s godfather. Fortunately, she has the Duchess of Norfolk and Lady Marquess Dorset as godmothers.

V.ii by Fletcher thinly dramatizes The Catholic-crown split by having KH8 watch the Archbishop from a distance.

V.i is supposed to be by S.: according to the Old Lady, K8 is “a boy.”

IV.ii Wolsey’s death by messenger, Katherine forgives Henry without apparent irony.

Earl of Surrey ctd.: Plague of your policy!/You sent me deputy for Ireland,/far from his succor, from the king, from all/that might have mercy on the fault thou gav’st him,/whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,/absolved him with an axe.

Earl of Surrey ctd.: Plague of your policy!/You sent me deputy for Ireland,/far from his succor, from the king, from all/that might have mercy on the fault thou gav’st him,/whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,/absolved him with an axe.

Earl of Surrey ctd.: Plague of your policy!/You sent me deputy for Ireland,/far from his succor, from the king, from all/that might have mercy on the fault thou gav’st him,/whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,/absolved him with an axe.

Earl of Surrey: Thy ambition,/thou scarlet sin, robbed this bewailing land/of Noble Buckingham, my father-in-law:/the heads of all the brother Cardinals–/with thee, and all the best parts together–/weighed not a hair of his.

III.ii by S. delivers Wolsey’s takedown-by-messenger: