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Summary
Late at night, Gardiner and Lovell meet. Lovell is in a rush, and Gardiner asks why. Lovell reports that Queen Anne is in labor. Gardiner says he wishes her well, but he thinks she may not be of the best stock to produce the heir to the throne. Gardiner thinks the kingdom will not be safe until she is dead, along with Cranmer and Cromwell. Lovell reminds him that those two men are in the highest favor with the king. But Gardiner says that he has already denounced Cranmer as a heretic, and Cranmer will be called before a Privy Council in the morning to be examined. They must root out bad weeds, Gardiner declares, and departs.
Henry and Suffolk enter and ask Lovell for his report on the queen’s labor. Lovell tells them that the birth is proving difficult and may be fatal for Anne. Henry says he needs to think and sends Suffolk away. Denny enters with Archbishop Cranmer. The king sends away Lovell and Denny. The king tells Cranmer that he’s heard many bad complaints about him, and that he’s been summoned before the Privy Council the next morning. The king knows that Cranmer can’t be exonerated without proof in his favor, so he may be temporarily imprisoned while the complaints are investigated, and the king asks him to be patient. Cranmer thanks the king for his warning, saying he knows how he is subject to many bad rumors. Cranmer says he isn’t afraid of the accusations against him, but the king reminds him that his enemies are powerful. He asks if corrupt men may be convinced to testify against Cranmer, which would ruin his case for innocence. Now concerned, Cranmer thinks he will inevitably fall into a trap set for him.
The king promises Cranmer that if the council decides to imprison him, he should use his best persuasions against such action. The king then gives Cranmer his ring and tells him to show it to the council should they try to cart him away, at which point the king himself will be authorized to hear Cranmer’s appeal. Cranmer weeps in thanks, and the king says Cranmer is the best soul in his kingdom. Cranmer departs.
The Old Lady and Lovell enter to tell Henry of the birth of his child. He demands that she tell him it is a boy, so she tells him it is indeed a boy—though it’s actually a girl. The Old Lady tells Henry that the baby resembles him, and Lovell and the king rush out to see her.
Analysis
As act 5 begins, we witness a new scheme in the making—this time aimed against the newly installed Archbishop Cranmer. The mastermind of this scheme is Gardiner, former secretary to the king and loyalist to the late Cardinal Wolsey. At this point, Gardiner has ascended the ranks of power and is now the bishop of Winchester. He also seems to have inherited Wolsey’s hatred of Cranmer. Back in act 3, Wolsey complained to himself that Cranmer “hath crawled into the favor of the King / And is his oracle” (3.2.134–35). Like Anne Bullen, whom Wolsey describes as a “spleeny Lutheran” (3.2.130), Cranmer seems to have Protestant leanings that make him a threat to the Catholic Church, not to mention “an heretic, an arch-one” (133). Gardiner now reprises his former master’s complaint and wants to orchestrate his fall. Yet for the first time in the play, Henry intervenes to quell dissension before it gets out of hand. Thus, he warns Cranmer and gives him his ring, putting him under the king’s protection for the next day’s hearing.
At this point, however, it seems valid to ask why the king has chosen to protect Cranmer when he previously seemed content to let three others who were close to him—Buckingham, Katherine, and Wolsey—all fall. The answer isn’t clear. One possible answer is that the character of King Henry is simply incoherent, and hence a result of the very likely fact that Shakespeare collaborated on the play with another playwright. Another possible answer relates to the overall logic of the play, which seems to be oriented entirely around the birth Henry and Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth. In one way or another, the three characters whose downfalls we’ve already witnessed somehow stood in the way of Anne’s rise to queen. Buckingham was accused of having designs on the throne, so he needed to go. Meanwhile, before Henry could marry Anne his first wife had to be cut loose. Finally, Wolsey had to be eliminated because he wanted to prevent the king from marrying Anne. Cranmer, by contrast, helped make Henry’s divorce possible. Hence, in the logic of the play, he is safe.
On this reading, Cranmer’s security is guaranteed by the birth of Henry and Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth—the “gem” that Lord Chamberlain previously predicted would arrive “to lighten all this isle” (2.3.95–96). In a rare moment of lightheartedness, the Old Lady who delivers the message of the baby’s birth follows the king’s order to declare the child a boy, though she immediately qualifies the announcement: “The God of heaven / Both now and ever bless her. ’Tis a girl” (5.1.202–203). Though comic, this moment may also be read as a reflection of the future Queen Elizabeth’s masculine mystique. Though she was not technically the first female to rule England (that honor went to her half-sister, Mary, the daughter of Katherine), she reigned as queen for a long period, during which she wielded the power of the Crown as well as any man.
