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Summary
The Prologue comes on stage and explains that what follows is a serious play. The events to come will invite the audience’s pity, bringing some to tears, but there will be much truth told as well. Those hoping for a bawdy, humorous play will be disappointed. The Prologue asks the audience to imagine that the noble characters of the play are alive, and he urges them to watch as their mightiness nevertheless brings them misery.
The duke of Norfolk, the duke of Buckingham, and Lord Abergavenny enter the scene. Buckingham greets Norfolk and asks him how he has been since they met in France. Buckingham was sick and confined to his tent while Norfolk was witness to grandiose displays by the kings of France and England at a field in France, where the two forces met to show off their respective glories. Norfolk relates the glamorous scene and how well it went off. Buckingham asks who had planned it, and Norfolk says it was all organized by Cardinal Wolsey.
When he hears this, Buckingham rails against Wolsey’s ambitious nature. Norfolk weakly defends him, but Abergavenny agrees that Wolsey displays undue pride. Buckingham insists that nobles paid for the trip to France, and Wolsey gave the least honor to those who spent the most. Abergavenny speaks of nobles forced to sell off their property to afford to keep up with the court. Norfolk agrees that the peace between England and France may be more costly than is reasonable. But he warns Buckingham that the cardinal is a powerful man, prone to avenging himself on those who speak badly of him.
Just then, Wolsey enters the scene with his aides. Glaring at Buckingham, he asks if one of Buckingham’s estate overseers has arrived to give testimony against the duke. His aides say the man has arrived, and Wolsey and his train depart.
Buckingham declares that he thinks Wolsey is plotting against him. He thinks Wolsey is on his way to gossip to the king, so he determines to rush to the king’s quarters first. Norfolk strongly urges Buckingham to calm down and not let his anger become so enflamed that he injures his own case. Buckingham agrees to calm down but repeats that he thinks Wolsey is corrupt and treasonous. Buckingham goes through the charges he would make against Wolsey to the king: he is prone to mischief; he engineered the entire arrangement with France to benefit himself; and he deals with Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and king of Spain, behind the king’s back. Norfolk is sorry to hear these charges and wonders if there could be mistake, but Buckingham insists there is none.
Brandon, the sergeant-at-arms, enters. He announces he has arrived to arrest Buckingham in the name of the king and to take him to the Tower. Buckingham says goodbye to Abergavenny, but Brandon intends to arrest Abergavenny, too, along with several of their comrades. Both swear to obey the decrees of the king and submit to arrest. Buckingham sees he is done for and bids farewell to Norfolk.
Analysis
The Prologue opens the play by emphasizing several overriding themes, including pity for those who have fallen and the revelation of truth. Explaining that this play concerns the rise and fall of important people close to the king, the Prologue sets the tone. What follows is not comedy, he says, but something more akin to a political thriller. The emphasis on pity indicates that none of those who will fall are really evil, but that they were perhaps misguided or unlucky and hence don’t deserve for us to think badly of them.
The play proper opens shortly after a treaty negotiation that took place in France. Freshly back from demonstrations of wealth and power that unfolded on “the vale of Andren” (1.1.9), Buckingham is barely able to contain his rage at Wolsey, whom he believes is a sinister figure who is attempting to commandeer the power of the king for his own ends. Norfolk attempts to calm Buckingham with aphoristic words of wisdom, but to no avail. Still seething, Buckingham openly accuses Wolsey of treason. For his part, Wolsey has his own bad opinions about Buckingham. We first get a sense for Wolsey’s distaste when he passes through the scene, briefly sounding his plan to get Buckingham’s (former) estate manager to testify against him.
Yet at this point in the play, we don’t yet know if either of these men is to be believed. Buckingham is the first character we meet, so we tend to believe his accusations, though he gives no clear explanation of what he thinks Wolsey has done wrong. Being arrested helps his case, as it proves that Wolsey was plotting against him offstage. That said, we don’t yet have any proof of Wolsey’s treachery. Whatever the truth of the matter, what is clear is that despite Buckingham’s serious allegations against him, Wolsey has both the power and the means to turn around and accuse the duke of the very crimes he wants to lay at the cardinal’s feet.
