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Spectacles of Pomp and Circumstance
The action of Henry VIII is studded with numerous spectacles, some of which are described in elaborate stage directions. The first key example is the masque performed by the king and his consort, when they arrive for Wolsey’s party dressed up as French shepherds. A second key example comes at the top of act 2, scene 4, as a host of clerics, lords, and other attendants assemble for Katherine’s divorce trial. A ceremony of similar scale occurs in act 4, scene 1, when a lively and sumptuous procession parades through the streets following Anne’s coronation. Then, in the following scene, we witness an elaborate dream vision that plays out in pantomime around the sleeping Katherine. Finally, there is the pomp and circumstance that precedes the joyful event of Elizabeth’s baptism and christening. These various masques, dreams, and state ceremonies give the play a lavish theatricality that offers the audience a visual feast while ennobling the historical narrative being dramatized.
Invocations of Divorce
Because the story told in Henry VIII centers in large part on the separation of England’s royal couple, it isn’t surprising that divorce should come up often in the play. What is surprising is that of the seven times the word divorce appears in the play, only four of those instances directly reference the dissolution of Henry and Katherine’s marriage. The first time the word appears is in act 2, scene 1, as Buckingham concludes the first part of his speech prior to his execution. Addressing the people who have gathered in the street, he says: “And as the long divorce of steel falls on me, / Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice, / And lift my soul to heaven” (2.1.93–95). The divorce he’s referring to here is the separation of his head from his body, but he also unwittingly foreshadows the royal divorce proceedings. A similarly unwitting reference appears two scenes later, when Anne suggests it may have been better had Katherine never known luxury, since it’s so much more painful “if that quarrel, Fortune, do divorce / It from the bearer” (2.3.16–17). A final example comes in act 3, scene 1, when Katherine warns Wolsey and Campeius that “nothing but death / Shall e’er divorce my dignities” (3.1.156–57).
Comparisons to Angels
Although no actual angels appear in the play, the word angel appears eight times. The word is sometimes used for rhetorical effect. For example, when the duke of Buckingham, on the way to his execution, addresses the public gathered in the street and calls on them to “go with me like good angels to my end” (2.1.92). At other times, characters use the word to describe others who are either truly angelic or else simply putting on an innocent facade. For instance, the youthful beauty Anne displays at her coronation earns her fawning flattery from one gentleman: “Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel” (4.1.54). By contrast, when Katherine faces Cardinals Wolsey and Campeius, she decries their false kindness: “You have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts” (3.1.161). The play is certainly interested in exposing “false” angels and celebrating “true” ones. However, in the end, most characters are somewhere in between; they are fallible and hence in need of forgiveness. Taken together, then, the various references to angels point to a more general observation about the imperfection of human nature. As the Lord Chancellor puts it: “we all are men, / In our own nature frail, and capable / Of our flesh—few are angels” (5.2.60–62).
